


Trionfi: notre futur, et mes plans pour le changer

by Pippin4242



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Fix-it fic, Gen, M/M, blatant self-indulgence, low-key married kuro fai, pardon my french, set after the main story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-10-12 14:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 28,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10493160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin4242/pseuds/Pippin4242
Summary: At some nebulous point in the future, Kurogane and Fai have settled down and made a new life for themselves, together. But ideas can't sleep forever, and this one's eating Kurogane alive. He's determined to fix a great wrong from Fai's past, whatever the cost might become.Call it selfishness, call it what you like: this sleeping dog can't lie a moment longer.





	1. Six d'épée

The rock was smooth, with two deep white rings scored into it. The lines met perfectly, despite its irregular shape. Kurogane held it up in front of the window, and saw that it was filled with tiny imperfections, like stars scattered through its deep blue substance. He turned it about for a few moments, half-blinding himself as he stared at the sparkling stone with the afternoon sun behind it. The magical tat around the shop bothered him – feathers made to change colour when the wind changed, leather straps draped with beads smelling of different fruits, the dust-stricken facsimile piglet frozen staring, wan, and waiting for a child owner. Like the shopkeepers didn't know what could be done with magic. Like they didn't know the opportunities it brought to a magicless fighter like him.

The rock was not expensive. It could do six seconds, and the enchantment would last for up to a year. Until now it had been housed on a shelf of small gifts, things for children to buy one another on birthdays and feast days, and it was scratched from storage.

It was perfect.

He paid a handful of the tiny tinny coins for it, hoping the bored young assistant wouldn't notice his hands shaking, and he put it deep into his pocket. As he began to walk back home, it became warm against his leg. It stayed, a comforting presence everywhere he went for days, as he considered.

It would be done, because it could be done.

Because it could be done, it had to be done.

Damn the cost. He had found a way to do something the mage could never have managed, and it was his responsibility now.

The little rock weighed heavy on him. He would lose concentration mid-sentence, and put his hand into his pocket, grazing his fingers across the surface, feeling its magic upon it like an oily static cling. Fai knew something was on his mind, Kurogane was certain – but in his usual irritating way, he had nothing to say about it, and slept peacefully every night.

Kurogane couldn't shake the feeling that time was of the essence. But of course the reverse was true; preperation was paramount, and he would get there at the right time, regardless of when he set off. So he used his training to calm his breathing at nights, used relaxation and focusing techniques to move his thoughts on whenever he found himself distracted. It was hard, but it was necessary.

Ten weeks passed this way, until Kurogane found at last that Fai was leaving town for a few days, hoping to pick up ingredients for his potions. His magic – which Syaoran had insisted was chemistry, since he didn't enchant anything any more – was slowly gaining a reputation in the hills as consistent, useful and unflashy. The older folks particularly got on well with him, and Kurogane knew the mage was hoping that community sentiment would follow. That they wouldn't stay strangers here forever.

Kurogane hoped that for him, too.

The house was lovely, of course – three large but simple rooms, built of wood, mostly by Kurogane – beneath a cliff face smoothed with green moss, upon a forked hillside path. In spring it was drenched with magnolia blossom from an ancient, gnarled tree. The well they'd dug had worked perfectly throughout the summer, and the rest of the year saw a clear, fresh stream flow alongside the road. Kurogane had planted sweet potatoes and beans alongside their new residence, and he hoped they would grow. But, in many respects, it was still just a house. Making it a normal home was taking work.

Fai had grown up in not one palace but two, and he had never been allowed to become ordinary. Two men of plainly different races living intimately had caused a decent amount of fuss right at the outset, if Kurogane was any judge. The fact that they had had to save before they could afford translation rings, occasionally subjecting them to catastrophic spell failure and bouts of total public gibberish, hadn't helped. Fai's personality was the hardest sell, naturally, but he seemed more relaxed by the day, and people would nod quietly to him when he walked down the hill in his silly, colourful robes. So maybe they could belong here. Maybe they could be happy, he had thought.

And now Kurogane had a magic stone in his pocket, and seven eighths of a plan.

He bade Fai a safe road, kissing him upon the lips with a hand at his mage's waist. He tried not to feel self-conscious as he did so, tried to keep his lips the right amount of firm but the right amount of soft. Tried not to betray that something very grave indeed was on his mind. Fai noticed, of course, and said nothing, of course. Instead he gave him a happy wave as he slung his pack over one shoulder, paused in the doorway, and asked one last time if Kurogane would change his mind and accompany him.

“Feh,” spat Kurogane, in mock derision. “You're the most frightening thing on the road to Baima.”

Fai started to turn to leave, until Kurogane grabbed him by the belt and kissed him once more, for good measure. The mage's eyes were sad as he left, but he smiled back at him anyway.

“Bye,” Kurogane said under his breath. “Be safe.”

He turned to the empty kitchen.

“I love you.”

The sound of it stayed in his ears as he considered it. He liked his voice. He felt it had a pleasant timbre, and that, predominantly, he used it to say things which helped people or made them happy.

Well, no plan could be perfect.

He sat peacefully at the table, and took a few deep breaths, and finally, the stone from his pocket. He ran his finger along the lines, and it began to hum. He had considered the words many times, and was fairly sure now of what he wanted to say. He closed his eyes and held the stone close to his lips.

“Make a mirror of yourself which will speak and act as you do and last for at least a day. Then take us both to where and when this stone was charmed with my voice.”

The stone ceased to vibrate. He stroked it, and a distant voice, sounding far too unsure to be his own, talked back to him.

_“Make a mirror of yourself which will speak and act as you do and last for at least a day. Then take us both to where and when this stone was charmed with my voice.”_

The instruction was complete, with a tiny audible snag at the end, where the stone couldn't hold everything. He certainly couldn't have fit any more information onto it, then. He would have had too much to say anyway – this way was better.

Kurogane put the stone back into his pocket, scrubbed his hands at the sink, and took some of yesterday's rice. He pressed it by hand into umeboshi onigiri, and wrapped the corners with dry seaweed. He laid them carefully into the box he'd prepared, alongside some strips of dry beef. He held back for a few moments, uncertain, and then grabbed the jar of pickled eggs, and took every single one out, one at a time, shaking the vinegar from them into the sink, and added them to the box too. He wondered about the peaches for a moment, but left them, and, closing the box, wrapped it tightly in a cloth and pinned it at the top. He placed it into the bottom of a heavy bag into which he had already discreetly gathered various things from around the house which wouldn't be missed. A thick blanket, a short cloak, an enormous pair of wool socks, two large canteens of water, and a sledgehammer. He rummaged in the bathroom cupboard for a while, and stuffed some bandages in the bag for good measure. Preparedness was key, but he hadn't wanted to do too much while Fai was in the house. He had thought long and hard about this day, but he was still bound to have forgotten something.

Kurogane stretched, to clear his mind. He sat back at the kitchen table and gathered his thoughts again, quietly grinding his ink stone while he thought about what to write. He supposed it wouldn't matter much; Fai would need a spell to translate anything he wrote, and being out of magic himself, would probably consult the witch first in the event of an emergency anyway.

 _Mage,_  
_I have gone on a journey._  
_I have been planning this for a long time._  
_I intend to be back before you._  
_If I am not here, then perhaps something has gone wrong._  
_Watanuki will know more._  
_Sleep thinking of him and he will find you in your dreams._

He paused, sighed, and decided to get it on paper. He was going to be back first anyway.

 _I love you._  
_If anything goes wrong, know that I did this because I wanted it with all my heart._  
_No matter what, I will love you still._  
_Take care, fool._

He watched as the ink dried, reading and re-reading. Gently, self-consciously, though he knew nobody could be watching, he raised the paper to his lips, and kissed it. He laid it carefully, in the middle of the table, where he was sure it couldn't be missed, and hefted the bag over his shoulder. He took his heavy travel cloak down from the peg, stuffed his socked feet into his iron-capped boots, and locked the kitchen door. He unlatched the window above the kitchen sink, aware irritatedly of his heavy boots on the floorboards. Self-consciously, making sure that nobody was approaching him on the path, he lifted a dull-looking (and ostensibly magical) rock on the windowsill, and placed the key beneath it. He closed and latched the window.

On the shelf beneath it, a bottle was stuffed with colourful leaves and dried berries. Fai had claimed they had therapeutic use; Kurogane suspected he just found them appealing. He took the bottle down, and drew from it a long, thin stick, which had been hidden in plain sight for some weeks now.

He replaced the bottle.

He snapped the stick.

The boy was standing behind him, his arms folded serenely into his sleeves.

Kurogane cleared his throat, unwilling to be sentimental in front of the witch. “I am ready, Watanuki,” he announced. “Everything is as I planned it.”

“Does Fai know?” asked Watanuki, a further question at the edges of his voice.

“I've – I've left a note,” Kurogane said, trying not to sound defensive.

Watanuki sighed, and straightened up further, looking him in the eyes. “The request is steep, and so is the price. You will travel to a designated place and time. I will require a great deal of magic for this. The price is –“

“Yeah,” muttered Kurogane, “I know –”

“Your voice, Kurogane. It will not be a physical process; it will be a theoretical one. You will not be able to use technology or magic to bring back or replace your voice, and even if you fail in your mission, there will be no restoring it by any means.”

“I know. I'm okay with that. It's an expensive spell.” Kurogane found, to his irritation, that he couldn't meet the boy's mismatched eyes.

Watanuki took a step towards him, and Kurogane fought the urge to step back, reminding himself that the witch wasn't even present in the room. The witch raised two fingers tightly clasped.

“It's worth it,” blurted Kurogane.

The edges of a smile crinkled at Watanuki's mouth.

“It is done,” said the witch, lowering his hand.

Kurogane said nothing, and never would again.

\---

_The Six of Swords:_

_Upright: Regretful but necessary transition, rite of passage  
Reversed: Cannot move on, carrying baggage_


	2. La Foudre

Kurogane had expected to notice the transition between worlds more. It had been so long since they'd travelled together that he had come to almost fear the stretching sensation and the curious limblessness he'd once felt as they were propelled through Mokona's gaping, magical maw – though it had seemed safe enough at the time. But instead his body was focused on one thing: screaming at him that something was wrong with his mouth. His tongue felt thick and heavy all of a sudden, and his throat constricted. His teeth seemed to be too big, and his eyes hurt. It was probably all in his head, he reminded himself. It was just that he knew something had changed, and he was so used to having full control of his body.

Experimentally he tried to make a sound.

He felt his vocal chords twang with the strain, but there was no noise anywhere, though he listened closely.

No – there was a sound, of sorts – but it wasn't coming from him. It seemed to be wind, echoing distantly. Kurogane forced himself to look up and consider his location. At some point during his uncomfortable exploration of his situation, the witch had somehow just slipped him from one place and time to another. He hadn't seen Mokona. Perhaps he should have expected the new boy to do things differently, but it left him with a cold, rather vulnerable feeling, which he tried to shrug off. A voice was such a small thing, really. He had severed his own arm once to save Fai, without even thinking about it. But that had been an emergency, his own self-doubt wheedled him – it was an emergency, and you could still communicate without your arm.

Well, this was an emergency. Even if it meant never speaking to the mage again. And just the awareness that he couldn't call for help shouldn't be so troubling. He didn't need to call for help; he was the strongest person he knew, and he hadn't needed saving from anything since he was a child. He was the one people called upon, not the one doing the calling. It would be fine.

The hillside was dark, but there was light shimmering on the horizon. It was a cold, pale light – dawn, rather than dusk, Kurogane assumed. His feet were chilly, but were warming up a little in his boots as he stood. He crouched and ran his fingers across the ground experimentally: as he had thought, snow. Not thick, impassable, magical snow such as they'd trudged through in Celes, but still a significant seasonal shift. He had packed appropriately, then.

He fastened his travel cloak firmly about his neck, hefted the bag onto his shoulder, and began to walk up the hill. There was no sign of habitation, but he was sure that Watanuki wouldn't have steered him wrong. Up just seemed sensible, and staying still foolish. He squinted at the edge of the hill, just visible as a silhouette in the grey half-light, and began to convince himself that he could see the tower he was searching for.

Squinting made the muscles in his face tighten, which made him hyper-aware of his uncomfortable mouth again. Watanuki hadn't asked for anything but his voice, and so there couldn't be any physical damage – or even difference, most likely. Just a voice which wasn't there any more. You can't feel an absence of something abstract, he tried to reassure himself, but that sounded wrong in his head too.

As he strained to make sense of the shadows and walked onwards, he tried to think about his eyes instead – would they be a problem, here? Fai had definitely told him a couple of times that he'd never met anybody with red eyes before, and he'd lived in two worlds. They were normal enough in Nihon, as far as he recalled. Certainly his father had had them, and a few of the courtiers. Not for the first time he considered that he had seen very little of the world before Tomoyo-hime sent him away. Kurogane hoped he didn't look threatening. Demonic.

It couldn't be helped. He was the best person for this task, which was why he was going to do it.

His throat felt _wrong_ , and since it wouldn't make any difference, he decided to shout and scream for a bit. Curse words and just plain noise – he stared up into the sky and threw his head back and howled, and nothing happened except a searing pain which crept in, as if he were going hoarse, which he couldn't be, and the tears which formed at the corners of his eyes. Probably from the strain and the cold air.

He walked on.

To have arrived this far from the tower must mean that there was a right side and a wrong side of approach. The shape of the tower was more distinct now, and there was a little more light than there had been. Presumably Watanuki had wanted him to be able to judge for himself how best to do this quietly. There were few enough potential witnesses on this day, as he recalled, but being seen by the wrong person could surely do a lot of damage.

The ground rose evenly, and seemed somewhat featureless – bleak, even. Apart from the odd snow-smoothed rock, Kurogane's booted feet clipped at nothing much in the semi-darkness, and he began to speed up, walking with increasing confidence. He had to stay himself in order not to run. His goal was so close. It was a beginning and not an end that he was rushing towards, but just knowing for sure that it could be done would make all of this worth it, so worth it.

He would be stranded if he couldn't pull this off, though. Voiceless, and alone in a dying land.

He paused for a moment, just to feel.

The wind burned at his ears, and he wished he'd brought full gloves. Raising a hand to them, his warm fingertips made them prickle painfully. His hand flew to his pocket: still there, he felt, through the fabric. Still there. His legs were warm and sore from the sudden climb in the cold air, and he felt glad to be able to sense them so clearly.

He was so close. Kurogane peered at the tower again. There was definitely a wall below it – built adjacent to it? So presumably that surrounded the pit. He still wanted to run.

He walked on.

It seemed forever, and then it seemed to happen all at once – the tower suddenly expanding to fill his field of vision, until he finally came to a halt before it. He was here.

The tower was large and sturdily built, as he had hoped it would not be. He touched its stones, wanting to call out, but not able. He was going to get that a lot, he supposed. He walked left, to the start of the wall, and then right. There was no door. It was possible that there was a door inside the walls, or that the tower was only usually accessed by magic. Presumably not, as no magic worked inside the pit. He hoped like hell he'd got everything right about this. That he was even standing on the right level for this to work.

Kurogane dropped the bag at his feet, and took out the sledgehammer.

What had been a well-used tool or potentially a devastating weapon back at home looked pathetic compared to the task before him. A great weight seemed to fall on his shoulders as he looked up towards the top of the tower. And up, and up.

The first strike would at least begin this, he knew, but he was a little afraid of making it. Failure was no longer an option. Kurogane closed his eyes, hefted the hammer, and struck once at chest height, loosely, experimentally. The blow was jarring but damaged the stone of the wall immediately. He struck again, and again, then listened, hearing no sound from inside the tower. He tried not to think about that, and struck again. This time a chunk of stone fell away, revealing lighter stone behind it. He touched it, the dust clinging to his fingers. He was closer already, and wanted to call out and say he meant no harm. He tapped once with his fist, but still heard nothing. The stone was still in his pocket.

If the pit somehow managed to disenchant it, he was going to die here.

Kurogane took it from his pocket, and walked a few paces from the tower. He made a little mound of snow and placed it on top. He stroked it, concerned.

_“Make a mirror of yourself which will speak and act as you do and last for at least a day. Then take us both to where and when this stone was charmed with my voice.”_

His voice, such as it had been, was half lost in the wind up here. But the little stone was still working. There had been no clause in the contract which stopped him from doing this.

Kurogane picked up the sledgehammer again, and he swung and he swung and he swung.

He swung until his arms felt as though they were on fire. He swung until his heart ached. He swung until he felt the flesh meeting the edge of his prosthetic arm begin to blister, and he swung again anyway. He swung until the stone at the centre of the impact shattered, and with his next swing he smashed the one alongside it. He wanted to stop and try reaching through, but the gap he'd created was still small, and he was beginning to feel that if he stopped swinging the sledgehammer then he might never be able to pick it up again. But as he continued smashing the wall he closed his eyes and tried to hear something, anything but the impact of metal on stone.

He could hear the wind against the hills. He could hear two distant birds, fighting.

He could hear the broken stone and crumbled cement skitter on a floor inside the tower. This was good.

He could not hear any sign of human life. This was less good.

Kurogane decided to shout for a bit while he kept hammering at the wall. At first it took his mind off things, but soon enough it made his throat sear and his cheeks burn, and he gave in and stopped trying to make any noise, instead screwing his face up against the pain. He kept hammering.

Several stones suddenly fell, a plume of dust coming with them. In a panic, Kurogane foresaw the whole wall coming down and destroying the tower, or making his attempt to breach it apparent from both sides, and ruining everything. He threw the hammer to the ground and lashed out hard with a twisting kick, knocking a whole chunk of wall inwards. He threw himself straight after it blindly, horrified at the impending sensation that he might have done this wrong and cut himself off altogether.

He landed on a cold wooden floor, and kept his head covered with his hands as the rubble and dust showered in every direction. It bounced harmlessly off of him.

Gingerly, he raised his head, afraid to look ahead. As the dust cleared and his eyes adjusted to the light, he finally saw his target.

In front of him sat a boy with a vague look of surprise and concern, stretched thinly over his underlying fatigue. His knees were up to his chin, his impossibly long hair trailed across the floor, and his face was lined and gaunt. His joints looked comically large; his legs, sticking out from beneath a faded shift, comically thin.

Fai spoke, and his dry, cracked voice sounded like logs breaking at the heart of a fire.

“Have you come to end this, then?”

Kurogane's tongue felt as though it was burning.

\---

_The Tower:_

_Upright: Disaster, upheaval, sudden change, revelation  
Reversed: Avoidance of disaster, fear of change_


	3. Reyne de Baton

Kurogane wanted desperately to be able to reassure the little wizard, twin of his beloved. But that was the heaviness of the price he'd paid. Surely this opportunity was more than worth a little difficulty in affecting his plan? But those wary eyes were hurting him more by the second.

He drew himself up to a polite kneeling position, his damaged shoulder shrieking wet pain at him through his clothes, and forced a smile. What a hypocrite he was – how he had raged at the mage for hiding his feelings like this. But this wasn't a lie, this was an attempt at communication – and surely the child Fai couldn't think he was even _pretending_ to be happy to see him, not with the tears which were slipping unbidden, streaming hot down his cold face and clumping the dust of the shattered wall. No, this was an answer to his question – the only answer Kurogane could give.

He was not here to end this, if _end this_ meant Fai's death. He was here to bring him life.

The child gazed back, uncertain. For a moment, his large, tired eyes flicked up to the broken wall, but he seemed to think it wasn't worth making a break for it. That must mean, Kurogane reasoned, that he looked as threatening as he'd worried he would. Crawling, he swiped the bag from just outside the tower; broken rock tumbled into the snow. The light was increasing by the moment, and he could nearly see the young Fai, even from here.

Electing to stay close to ground level, he crawled back into the tower, and set the bag between himself and the boy. The urge to just grab him, hold him tight, scream with his arms that he loved him already and wanted him to be safe and happy – he'd anticipated it a little, but this was nearly overwhelming. Unable to simply tell him he was here to help, Kurogane would have to take a more circuitous route.

He drew both canteens of water from the bag, and set them on the dusty wooden floor. He motioned for Fai to take one, and waited while he chose. Fai looked uncertainly back at him, clutching the metal bottle in his bone-thin hands. Kurogane tried not to stare as he forced himself to calmly open the second bottle, and drink deeply.

Fai asked something, in that frail voice which set Kurogane's teeth on edge. It seemed that his translation ring had ceased to function already. He hoped it would work again, once he was back outside the tower. It had been upon his finger for so long that he'd half-forgotten understanding the language the twins used wasn't natural to him.

The voice itself was wrong and awful. They were identical. His Fai must have been this tiny and damaged, and knowing that made Kurogane wish that these were problems he could cut with his sword.

He attempted a reassuring smile, but his silence, or maybe his fire-red eyes, seemed to be unconvincing. Gently he took the sealed bottle from Fai's hands, and passed him the open one. Nervously, the boy took a drink. Kuro motioned with his fingers to take _just a little bit, just this much_ and either Fai understood or was too afraid to take any more, since he put the bottle back down quickly.

Kurogane took his wrapped lunch box from the bag. A stolen glance at Fai's impossible wrists reminded him that anything he could have brought would be desperately inadequate, but he had to start helping him somewhere, didn't he? Using only slow, deliberate movements, he unwrapped the box and placed the top to one side. _Just a bit,_ he motioned again. He didn't want Fai to make himself ill.

Fai was already reaching out to the food when he restrained himself, and peered at Kurogane's face instead. He began to ask a question, in a small voice, which at least didn't crack as badly as it had before – but Kurogane motioned him to be silent. A finger to his pursed lips. Fai looked down hungrily at the eggs, and back up at Kurogane. He leaned a little closer.

He whispered a question, and looked warily into Kurogane's face.

 _A little, just a little_ , motioned Kurogane. Fai looked questioningly up at the barred window, and Kurogane held his finger to his pursed lips again.

Fai kneeled up, to get closer to him. He looked unsteady, but Kurogane hesitated to grab him – not only did he not want to frighten him, but having him cry out and potentially change the course of events was – not ideal. Kurogane closed his eyes, wanting to appear acceptant of the attention, and relaxed.

Fai asked something, his tiny broken-nailed fingertips gently brushing Kurogane's eyelids.

Kurogane opened his eyes, and looked a little towards the window, wanting to oblige Fai in his curiosity.

The question grew more complicated, and Kurogane smiled again, trying to communicate polite incomprehension. Fai clearly wasn't satisfied, and rephrased his question.

Unable to answer, Kurogane gestured down to the food. He took an egg for himself – not that he was hungry – the sight of Fai's mistreated little body was enough to make him feel as though he'd never be hungry again. He bit into the egg in a deliberate motion.

Fai stuffed an entire egg into his mouth, as if afraid that Kurogane would change his mind. He chewed awkwardly in a silence which was not entirely uncompanionable. Kurogane took an onigiri, and broke it in his hands, showing Fai the inside. He puckered his lips slightly – _this is sour, boy_ – and ate it in silence. Fai took one too, looking up at him for approval. Kurogane smiled back.

They ate a little of everything, with Kurogane encouraging Fai to take another drink before he packed the food away. Fastidiously, he poured some of the water over his own hands, onto the floorboards, and Fai let him do the same for him. His non-human hand elicited a frightened glance, but no question. He had thought it moved well enough, that its skin tone was close enough to his own, but clearly something was odd enough about it to worry the child. The water stained the dusty floorboards to a rich brown, and he thought regretfully how he would have preferred to leave nothing at all from his beautiful home in this desolate, evil realm.

He took the socks from the bag, and passed them to Fai, who looked at him questioningly.

 _Pull them onto your feet,_ he gestured. Fai struggled, with his grazed, broken-nailed fingers, even to unball the socks, but Kurogane was loathe to interfere with him.

The socks came nearly up to his knees.

Kurogane took the travel cloak from the bottom of the bag, and shook it out. It was largely uncreased, and looked thick and warm. He undid the clasp and held it out expectantly. Fai obliged, it turned out, leaning in to allow Kurogane to do it up about his neck. The little mage asked another question quietly, and Kurogane held a finger to his lips. Fai looked troubled, and bit his lip, but stayed quiet.

Kurogane hoisted the bag over his good shoulder, and assessed the wall. He hadn't knocked out too much – the gap was about four feet by four feet, with an entire slab of near-intact wall lying on the floor inside the tower. But the degree to which the stone had shifted was troubling. It was an old building, and the mortar had crumbled too easily.

He stepped into the gap and spread his arms wide against the stone. This was the best he could do to make sure that it didn't come down on them both. A little dust crept down his neck in a dry trickle, and made him shudder.

He motioned Fai to step through, using his head. Uncertainly, the boy picked his way across the rubble-strewn floor, and ducked under Kurogane's outstretched arm. He looked as though there was at least one more question in him, so to pre-empt it, Kurogane nodded and gestured him on.

Fai stood in the snow, in the socks.

Kurogane ducked out quickly, half-expecting the whole wall to tumble down behind him, but it held. He laughed a little to himself in relief, and was disturbed when his laughter made no sound. He could have run and jumped for joy, for all that his body was screaming at him with pain, could have shouted, could have grabbed Fai into the air and twirled him around. Instead, he politely offered Fai his human arm, and pointed to the little stone in the snow.

Fai was obedient enough as they walked together to retrieve the stone but kept looking longingly back towards the tower. Kurogane had no doubt as to who or what he could be thinking about.

Kurogane showed Fai his magic stone, triumphant. As long as his ring was working again, this should be fine. He stroked it.

_“Make a mirror of yourself which will speak and act as you do and last for at least a day. Then take us both to where and when this stone was charmed with my voice.”_

Fai looked up in surprise. He took the stone from Kurogane's unresisting hands and stroked it for himself, and appeared to listen closely this time. The field effect of the ring should be more than adequate, Kurogane knew, though it extended only a few feet beyond the wielder.

“This is your voice?” whispered the child.

Kurogane knelt in the snow, so they could read each other's expressions more clearly. He nodded.

“Are we leaving here?”

Kurogane nodded gently, with a half-smile.

“But – my brother...” he trailed off.

Kurogane nodded again.

“He's coming too?”

A shake of the head.

“He's – someone else will take him?”

Kurogane closed his eyes and clasped his good hand over his heart.

“You swear it?”

Kurogane nodded.

“And you can't take us both?”

Kurogane nodded. Fai looked up at him, tears bunching in the corners of his tired eyes.

“There's no way? But he'll definitely be safe? You swear it?”

Kurogane nodded again, and smiled – he couldn't help it; the smile was genuine, and Fai seemed to notice it. It was thinking of his Fai, his mage, Kurogane supposed – he really would make it, he'd be fine – perfect, even – it was impossible not to smile a true, deep smile, knowing the future as he did.

A dry little hand brushed at his lips, snapping him back into reality. Fai looked deeply concerned and a little sympathetic.

“You can't talk at all, can you? You don't mind that I'm talking, so long as nobody can hear us. But you haven't made any noise, the whole time you've been with me, even when the wall was falling on you.”

Kurogane nodded, blinking slowly in agreement.

“Okay. Sorry I've got so many questions.” Fai sat back down.

Kurogane shook his head.

“It's okay if I ask them, even if it's hard to answer?”

Kurogane closed his eyes at that, with a smile.

_Always._

\---

_Queen of Wands:_

_Upright: Exuberance, warmth, vibrancy, determination  
Reversed: Shrinking violet, aggressive, demanding_


	4. Six de Deniers

Fai seemed unsure of how many questions he was allowed to ask. His curiosity was faltering; he kept peppering the air with questions and then completely stopping again.

“Is it okay for me to use my magic when you're here? What if I can't do it? Don't you find it scary?”

Kurogane brushed the questions away with smiles, and simply pocketed the charmed stone once more, taking Fai's willing – but trembling – hand, and leading him back towards the damaged tower. He gestured open-palmed at the broken wall. _Can you do this for us, little man?_

“A – a fake me?”

Kurogane nodded.

“You need him to stay in the tower, right? Do you need me to fix the wall as well?” Fai crouched in the snow and pulled the borrowed cloak about himself. He was clearly still exhausted and overstretched, but the challenge seemed to have lit him up somehow. “That means... when you didn't say that too, it was because you couldn't leave a long message?”

Kurogane nodded, patiently.

“Were there other things which were important? You don't have any magic, do you? Or you would have left a longer message?”

Kurogane wavered a hand in the air, at the first question. _Uncertainty. Yes and no._ He nodded at the rest.

“Something I need to know about the instructions,” allowed Fai, and paused, clearly hoping for an indication.

 _One_. Kurogane held up a finger. He mimed picking up the fallen stone, and thrusting it to the gap in the wall.

“Firstly, you'll need me to repair the wall.” Fai nodded, satisfied with his grasp of proceedings.

 _Two_. Kurogane hesitated. He really wasn't too sure how this would work, or even how to communicate it. He crouched alongside Fai, and began to scrape together the thin snow, until it made a shape a little like a boy with long hair.

“It's me?” asked Fai, after a little while.

_Uncertainty. Yes and no._

“The fake me.”

Kurogane nodded, and after a moment's consideration, smashed the head from the little figure. Fai suppressed a shudder. Kurogane waited for him to give his interpretation.

“The fake me... will be killed.”

Kurogane nodded, but watched him expectantly.

“The fake me will be killed... and so there's something I need to do to make the fake work properly.”

Kurogane nodded, and gestured to the remains of the little snow child.

“This is a... a body? You need me to leave enough magic that there will be a body?”

Kurogane nodded, relieved.

“That's so much magic,” breathed Fai, in awe. “All that and walk between worlds? I've never even been trained – oh,” he stumbled, abruptly, “I don't know your name. Can you write it in the snow?”

Kurogane grinned at that. Fai seemed perplexed. He leaned over and wrote, with a chilly fingertip, _Black Steel_. Fai stared.

“Oh. I can't read that.”

Kurogane nodded.

“You... knew I couldn't read that. You know... a lot about me?” Fai looked up, half-concerned, and half intrigued.

Kurogane nodded.

“And you... can't write in a way that I can understand?”

Unsure whether that was meant for a nod or a shake of the head, Kurogane smiled in faint agreement. He assessed Fai's mood: the little mage was wide awake, and trembling with cold or over-stimulation, but seemed to trust him at least somewhat at this point. Kurogane reached over and touched him gently on the tip of the nose, and silently breathed a word to him, shaping it slowly and clearly in his soundless mouth.

 _Fai_.

The boy's eyes widened in delight. “That's right! So... you know many things about me? And you think I can do all of that magic?”

Kurogane grinned, and held up three fingers.

“There's a third thing?”

Kurogane pointed to his own ear, and tapped his translation ring, then pointed to the tower.

“The ring... um, you want to do something with it at the tower? Or something's different about it over there? It's, it's to do with, with hearing – it's um, for translation? Of course it's for translation, because I can't read your writing. So you can't understand me unless you're wearing it... unless you're wearing it and standing in a place where magic can work. You can't understand me when we're too close to the prison. Oh! You _couldn't_ understand me in the tower! No wonder you kept telling me to be quiet.” Fai chuckled wanly.

Kurogane smiled at his self-awareness, and allowed himself the pleasure of resting a hand on Fai's head. The boy looked thoughtful.

“I think I mostly wanted to know about your eyes.”

Kurogane nodded, but shrugged.

“Were they altered?”

Kurogane shook his head, briefly picturing his Fai, back when his single eye had been amber. Yes, that was possible, when magic was involved.

“I've never seen anybody with red eyes. Are, um, you a human?” The mage looked a little guilty at asking him that.

Kurogane nodded, with mild sympathy. The boy was starting from complete first principles here.

“Then maybe... you're from a very, very long way away.” Fai smiled back, this time. He had the right answer, and he knew it.

Kurogane grinned, and gave him the single raised thumb he'd seen used in several worlds as a sign of positivity and praise. If Fai didn't understand the symbol on its own, he'd surely see the spirit in which it was used, and pick it up for himself.

It would have been useful to practice the language of hands before he'd left. Kurogane had heard of such symbols being codified and taught to the deaf and those around them, but he had never known he would have any use for the language until it was too late to study discreetly. Surely even a boy who had been locked in a tower would have understood a simple code devised by scholars more easily than this mish-mash of body language and invented signs. Perhaps he would be able to find a book showing him how to communicate effectively once they were home and settled, though reading it at all was likely to be the first challenge, unless they were able to import one from Nihon – expensive magic again. At least Fai was enthusiastic and quick to guess. Kurogane could only hope that _his_ Fai – who was surely going to have to revert to his birth name, once he knew about the plan – would be so understanding and energetic in getting around his impediment.

He wouldn't be able to make any sound for him in bed any more. How would he show appreciation in the dark?

Kurogane squashed his thoughts for the present, and took a deep lungful of the mercifully fresh air. Something seemed to be burning in the far distance. Perhaps they didn't have long. He stood, and took Fai's willing hand. After taking just a few pages, he hung back, gently propelled the little mage towards the broken tower. Fai looked back in surprise. Kurogane pointed to his ring and to his own ear.

“You're staying over there to be sure your ring won't fail again?”

Kurogane nodded.

Fai faced the tower, swaying slightly. The snow had already visibly soaked the gigantic socks, and the wetness of it had climbed halfway up his legs already. Kurogane felt a pang of guilt at that; perhaps he should have tried harder to find and conceal some shoes of no particular size. He had hopes yet that Fai would allow himself to be carried once the magic was done – selfishly, he wondered if that was why he hadn't provided anything more suitable: he wanted to forge an instant bond, to be trusted implicitly – to have it be assumed that he would stay in the boy's life as long as he drew breath. For that was his intention.

Kurogane had no idea what his Fai would say to any of this. It was a plan which came from a place of kindness, no doubt, but he had chosen to carry it out alone. Fearful of his argument against the price? Fearful of the possibility that his mage would offer a crueler price of himself? For Fai surely wouldn't have offered his voice – rendering his dregs of magic impossible to use as he was accustomed, and preventing him from its free use should it ever truly return – perhaps the use of his arms or legs? Would he have tried to offer his sight again? His sense of touch?

The silence didn't stem just from his fear of the price Fai would have offered to save his twin, though – Kurogane was sure of that. How fitting that the price exacted had turned out to be his voice, when he had kept so much from the mage. Kurogane had known that there was a distinct chance of failure no matter how well he had planned, and he had been truly afraid of raising his Fai's hopes before he began this trip. Even the letter he had written on the fly had made no mention of his cause. He turned his translation ring about his finger uneasily.

And yet. There was another reason still. A darker one. The reason that had Kurogane desperate to cling to the small Fai's tiny body as soon and as often as possible.

Kurogane had once cut in half the body of this boy. His mage had thrown away all hope of returning the child to life that day, and Kurogane sensed that a part of his ability to stay alive after that sight – his ability to feel hope and love again, to get up from his bed in Nihon, and start being rude to him once more – had come from his eventual willingness to see his twin's fate as hopeless. To see it as an unsalvageable wish, placed before him by manipulators who had simply wanted to use his magic for their own ends.

Kurogane felt reasonably sure that his intentions towards his partner weren't selfish by design. But was this purely for his sake? Was it for the boy's sake? Or was it for his own sake?

Could he be atoning for the destruction of the body? It could well be that Kurogane was simply trying to prove that he was more loving and kind than anybody else. More ambitious and daring. A great warrior, able to protect his lands (and here, his lands were his little home, and the mage's heart) where no other could. He had risked robbing his Fai of _two_ beloved figures in the attempt to execute this plan, after all. Surely he could not be said to be all benevolent. Perhaps what this was really about, for Kurogane, was how very much he regretted that he had never been able to grow up and take the place of his father?

There was risk, and where there was risk, there was an assumption that he was entitled to take this matter into his own hands. Were it so simple as _finding_ the child and bringing him back home, there would be nothing to it. But this mission was something incredibly painful which he was bringing forcibly back into the mage's life. A grave picked over, old wounds resplit.

He remembered uneasily how hard it had been to accept Ginryu back, at first – so welcome and necessary a gift, but one which came after he had been sure the sword was destroyed, to protect his father and mother in the next life. It had been as though the Ginryu in his hands was an imposter, and after the first rush of happiness and recognition, tying him back to his parents after all this time, the sword had sat very uneasily at his hip. Tomoyo-hime, whom he had loved beyond all else, had assumed a great deal indeed when she kept the sword back for him. And when all was said and done, Ginryu was only a sword. Fai-by-birth was a person.

Yes. Kurogane was afraid that his Fai would not be able to love this child.

“Hey!” came an excited hiss which wanted to be a shout. “I think I've done it!”

\---

_The Six of Pentacles:_

_Upright: Generosity, charity, giving, prosperity, sharing wealth  
Reversed: Debt, selfishness, one-sided charity_


	5. Le Pendu

Kurogane's first urge was to stride manfully over and see for himself what Fai had managed, but he feared the possibility of breaking the little mage's concentration, or of damaging the enchantment on his ring of translation.

He also knew, shamefully, that he would almost certainly have been unable to face the facsimile Fai as he was bricked up again. He was half-afraid that he might have to catch a child as he ran, or worse, tell the two apart, and choose which to send to his death. But no second child appeared – perhaps Fai had given himself some control over the second him? An unpleasant thought, but convenient for Kurogane. He watched on as Fai extended two trembling hands, fingers outstretched. First the rubble was there – and then it wasn't.

Was it mawkish to wish peace on the soul of an empty vessel? He hoped the other Fai had remained there peacefully.

The little mage approached him, and touched his hand gently, snapping him back to the present. “I did it, sir. I'm sure of it – I can still control what the other me does a little bit. I'll know when he dies.”

Kurogane blinked back a shudder. _Thank you for your service._

And with that, they were free to move on.

He bent down to look at Fai, and stretched his arms out. Doubtfully, Fai stepped between them, and Kurogane gently scooped him up.

He weighed next to nothing, even in aching, blistered arms.

Kurogane watched his expression closely. The boy didn't seem accustomed to being lifted, but nor did he seem resistant to the notion. Kurogane shifted his weight in his arms a little so that he could point to the sopping socks. Fai nodded faintly and rested his head against Kurogane's chest. They remained like that a while. Kurogane, though exhausted himself, felt no need to burden the child with the knowledge that he too was fallible and desperate to rest. He planted his feet wide apart and let him doze for a few minutes, while he tried not to think about the feel of the boy's ribs through his shift, and even through Kurogane's fingerless gloves. Fai's uncut feet of straggly blonde hair draped over Kurogane's arm and moved gently in the light breeze. The sun had fully risen, now.

His mage was in the pit, but he could not go to him. He would have to help him when the time was right. And hopefully, here in his arms, was a way for him to do that.

Kurogane nudged the young Fai gently with his aching shoulder. His sunken eyes batted slowly open. “Yes. The other spell, isn't it?” he murmured. Kurogane could hear a little of the boy's adult twin in his voice now.

Hefting him awkwardly to one side, Kurogane retrieved the stone from his pocket, and put it into the mage's hands.

“I'm going to feel for it, I think. Maybe I'll have some questions.”

Kurogane held him more evenly. The combined weight of boy and bag seemed as though it was going to drive his feet into the hillside.

Fai closed his eyes.

“It's from a green country. Warmer than here.”

Kurogane started to nod, and then realised it was pointless. He waited.

“You enchanted this stone where you live. There's a house made of wood. Running water.” Fai stroked the stone and let the voice play uselessly. “There's so much green, isn't there? I feel like I can... smell it.”

Fai's breathing became slow and even.

Something in the air seemed different. Kurogane looked away from the child with a start.

He was _home_. That easy! They had done it!

There was his beautiful, foolish, rudimentary house, with its wooden walls and roof of slates. Here was the stream, and there the well. The deep orange blossoms on his beans were bobbing in the breeze – but it was a _warm_ breeze, with the smell of damp moss and clean water in the air. No smoke to speak of at all. They had done it!

Fai looked muzzily up from his arms. “Is this right, sir?”

Kurogane nodded, joyfully, and ran to the door with great striding bounds, all fatigue temporarily put aside. Gods, the twins' world had been _grim_. He went to open the door, and, his breath catching in his throat, remembered himself a little. They would have to wait until he could be sure that his earlier self had left the house; an encounter could be awkward or counter-productive. If he had hesitated once whilst hammering at the wall, things could have gone very differently. Maybe it would have crumbled down on top of him; maybe he would have become exhausted and would never have broken through, and would have been captured by Fei Wang Reed. He had to let the balance of his original plan remain intact.

He gently set Fai on the porch boards, but the boy seemed unable to stand, and slumped over, half-asleep, or worse. He felt a brief pang of guilt before remembering: if he hadn't stolen him away, Fai would have died today.

Kurogane rounded the corner of the house and waited, in ninja silence. Eventually, a hand appeared – his own, leaving the key on the windowsill. He listened, and heard lowered voices, and then silence. He raised himself up to look through the window, and caught Watanuki's eye for just a moment. The witch was smiling. He vanished.

Kurogane scrabbled for the key under the rock with numb fingers and fumbled the door unlocked. They had done it! He wanted to give a shout of joy, and no longer cared that he could not. They had done it!

He saw the sleeping boy lying prone against the walls of his house and felt a strange mixture of feelings. It was meant to be easy from now on, wasn't it? And surely the heartbeat he could feel at his throat and the tingling in the fingertips of his good hand must be some kind of mistake. It felt almost like dread rising in him, and he knew with a heavy heart what was filling him with fear.

The child before him was a real, breathing person. His past always known, his present recently changed, and his future unknowable. There was no guarantee that Kurogane's partner would be able to cope with his presence. He had expressed no will to sire children of his own, but the age gap which had grown between the twins had made this a parent-child situation. And if his Fai should prove incapable or unwilling, then Kurogane was now the sole parent of this child.

He didn't know how much to feed a half-starved person. He wasn't even sure if starvation rules applied to a magic-user this powerful, or to any person who had been in the stasis of the magical void where the tower and pit were sited. He was afraid of over-feeding him. Afraid of under-feeding him. Afraid he would choose the wrong foods altogether and somehow kill him. And under no circumstances could he let the boy catch wind of any of these broiling fears and doubts.

Desperate to do everything for the child all at once, Kurogane decided he should be treated as the battle survivor he also was. Both twins had won against Fei Wang Reed now. Both had won and escaped their grandfather. And a soldier arriving home in this condition deserved rest first of all. He was strong. He would wake hungry and let Kurogane know what to do first.

Kurogane scooped the little mage back into his arms and carried his unresisting form across the threshold, trying not to add weight to every 'first' he noticed for him. The letter lay unopened upon the kitchen table.

He carried him to the single bedroom and laid him on the raised mattress that his Fai had insisted on. Stripped the wet socks and the cold cloak from him. Drew the padded kakefuton – which Kurogane had insisted on – over his tiny form. And he sat and watched and watched as the little wizard slept a deep, deep sleep. It was still mid-morning, and the light streaming through the bedroom window was dappled into blazing spots by the leaves and the blossoms of the pink mempat tree outside. They crossed the face of the little mage, illuminating the hollows and furrows of his old-but-young wrinkles, and where the streaks of light caught at single hairs emerging from the matted mess of blonde, they blazed golden and full of promise. Kurogane watched and wondered at this human life, which had somehow fallen into his hands.

Eventually he would find some level of reason again. He would go to the kitchen, quietly eat the rest of the food he had packed away. Wash out the lunch box and prepare some clothes for when the boy awoke. He would burn the letter in the hearth and when the ashes had cooled, scrape them out and take them outside, pack them tightly around the bases of his beans, and sprinkle them with water to make sure they would hold. He would sweep the kitchen and put the hammer away, then wash the socks and hang them on the line, flapping gently in the afternoon breeze.

But until he was able to find himself again, Kurogane just knelt by the bed and watched the child breathe.

\---

_The Hanged Man:_

_Upright: Suspension, restriction, letting go, sacrifice  
Reversed: Martyrdom, indecision, delay_


	6. Le Monde

Fai, the prisoner from the tower, awoke feeling as though he was drowning. He was up high, storm-tossed, instead of on the familiar floorboards. Something was bunched up around his face, and something had his hand! He tried to snatch it away, but he was stuck he was _stuck_ , and then – he realised that he could breathe freely, and that the sea is wet.

He opened his eyes.

The warrior was here! The red-eyed man he'd thought he'd imagined once, a long time ago, was _here_! Except his armour was all gone, and he had on a pair of loose cloth trousers, and a plain buttonless shirt falling open a little to reveal a bandage around his shoulder. He was slumped across the edge of the bed in a dead sleep, and he was grasping Fai's hand tightly. Not with the funny-looking hand, either – with the human-looking one. It was warm, and huge, and there were big callouses on the pads of his palm. And... he was definitely an adult, but he probably wasn't as old as Fai had thought to start with.

There was food and water on a little table at the side of the bed. At first Fai pretended that he hadn't seen it, out of habit thinking it couldn't be for him. And then he remembered the kindness shown by the nameless warrior, who had shared food with him while he was still in the tower.

The tower! To think he was _free_ , and that it was his hated magic that had brought him to a place of safety! It was _awful_ that he'd had to leave Yuui behind after all of that, the WORST, but the warrior had promised, and he couldn't see any way to find out what was going on without just trusting him. He was strange-looking, and his silence was unsettling, but he had been careful with Fai when he held him. Though his instincts told him to be wary, Fai already regarded him with at least a little affection. He wondered if the man was sleeping here knowing how much he missed Yuui. He definitely knew who Yuui was, and seemed to know where he was going next. His smile when Fai had asked about him had been warm and deep – it had made him look almost like a different person completely. So thinking of Yuui waiting for rescue for just a little while longer didn't seem so bad right now. He really hoped he would be able to see him again.

Fai very carefully extracted his hand from the warrior man's grasp, so as not to wake him, and quietly lifted the plate into his lap. It was the same white grain that he had been offered before, but fragrantly spiced, with peas and mushrooms and some kind of meat broken up throughout it. Fai had thought he wasn't hungry, but he found himself clearing the plate in what felt like an instant. He considered leaving a little for a moment, but after some thought he felt sure that, since the warrior man had communicated all of his other instructions clearly from the get-go, this was surely another one – when you wake, you are allowed and encouraged to eat and drink this much.

He drank the water too, when he had finished – a high, tall glass, which was hard for him to hold, filled with the freshest-tasting water he'd ever tried. It somehow tasted of coolness, and it smelled like grass.

Fai didn't want to wake the warrior man, so he sat up in the bed for a little while, taking in his surroundings. He didn't remember coming to bed – he had probably been carried again. It had taken a really amazing amount of magic to get here. He wondered how long he had been asleep.

The light seemed a little different here to the kind he was used to, but from what Fai could see through the tree-shaded window, it was a warm light – perhaps an afternoon light. The walls were made from neatly planed pale wood, and the personal posessions scattered around gave him the distinct impression that this was not a guest bedroom. Perhaps the man had fallen asleep hunched over like that because there wasn't another bed at all? Still, there were two pillows, and a hair near the other one was blonde. Fai knew it wasn't his own, because it was lighter in shade, and far shorter. There were shelves with cluttered books in higgledy-piggledy stacks. Some of the more simply-made ones seemed to be bursting their bindings with tabbed notes and extra pages exploding out in a cacophany of information. There were coloured bottles with labels written in a loose, flowing hand. He carefully opened a cloth-topped box near the bed, and found it filled with sweet-smelling wraps of herbs – he quickly replaced the cloth, in case he was disturbing or contaminating anything. A sword of incredible length and craftsmanship was stood in the corner, resting incongruously against the wall with two wax paper umbrellas. A chest below the window and a large wardrobe probably contained all the clothes and bedding used in this home. Who was the blonde person? Were they here now?

As he pondered, Fai began uneasily to recognise in his body a long-forgotten sensation, and he hopped out of bed on sore feet, no longer used to walking, to seek the toilet. It seemed primitive, but he found it right away – and found the layout to be hearteningly self-explanatory. There wasn't a sink, but poking his head around the kitchen door, he found to his relief a tap, soap, scrubbing brush and a towel, and he padded quietly back into the bedroom feeling relief in more ways than one. Unsure of what else to do, he clambered back into the bed, making as little noise as possible.

The warrior man gave a little snuffled snort in his sleep – it was strangely soundless, like a catch in his breathing which went unvoiced – and woke up with a start.

“Hello,” said Fai shyly. He wasn't sure about the time of day, or if the warrior man had meant to go to sleep, but there was a space in the air to be filled – and the man who'd helped him was hardly in a position to fill it. “I was asleep for a long time, wasn't I? Thank you very much for the meal. I hope I was meant to eat it, because I've finished every bite.” He inclined his head slightly in polite thanks.

The warrior man grinned, and stretched as he stood, cat-like. An audible pop from his back made Fai jump – yes, the man must be very strong, by the look of his body, and by the way he'd bashed down a wall by himself, but surely all that would make anybody tired. He wondered, with a prickly itchy feeling at the back of his neck, whether the bandage he'd seen was something to do with how the man had come to get him, too.

The warrior man held up a finger, which looked to Fai like _wait here for a moment_ , and stalked into another room. There was an unsettling roaring grinding sort of noise, and a rushing sound like water. He was clattering various things as if he was assembling something, but Fai couldn't quite work out what it could be.

And then the magical fake Fai was killed. Fai couldn't contain the gasp of pain which flashed through him for a second. His hands shot to his neck. For just a moment he had felt it – an awful, sickening crunch, and then a little of his strength returned to him. The false him had died, and died violently. Had the warrior man acted with knowledge of the method of death intended for him? Perhaps his head had just been smashed, as he'd been shown with the snowman. Did that mean that Yuui was free to leave now? If that were the case, then Yuui hadn't had to wait too much longer... though Fai wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep, it surely couldn't have been been cruel to say yes to the warrior man, and abandon his twin to imprisonment for this short length of time, could it?

The warrior man suddenly appeared at the bedroom door, clearly alarmed. He seemed to assess the situation for a moment, and then came towards Fai with outstretched arms. Fai wasn't sure if he was offering to hold him – he was still so shaken – so he found himself just grasping at the great, thick arms (and what _was_ it that seemed so strange about one of them?), fighting back tears.

“I'm okay! I'm okay, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry –”

The warrior took matters into his own hands, and knelt to draw Fai into a hug. He stroked his hair while Fai struggled to calm himself down. “Did I make a noise? I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm so sorry. It was just, it was just,” and he found himself _crying_ and when had he last done that? “I – I – um, it was the fake me, I'm sorry, I just, I felt it when it happened, and it felt really bad, and um, I'm really pleased to be alive, and I don't know why any of this is happening to me, and I don't know why you wanted me here, but I'm so glad you did, and I miss Yuui and I'm so sorry I'm like this, I can't seem to get my breathing right, and I wish I could talk to you properly and I'm sorry I don't know your name and why are you doing all of this for me?” He heaved one wet sob and then managed to stop himself from crying any more.

The warrior man gently took Fai's chin in his massive hand. He looked as though he pitied Fai, which was a little uncomfortable, but then again, maybe he was just trying to project an aura of generalised sympathy. Of course all those questions were too difficult to answer without words, and it seemed he wasn't even going to try – until the moment that the warrior leaned in close, and kissed Fai right on the nose. 

Fai felt himself starting to laugh, and then he realised he couldn't stop. He laughed until his ribs hurt and until he started crying all over again. He was being held against the man's broad chest, with one strong hand holding his head. The man smelled nice and his shirt was soft.

Fai's laughter began to subside into snuffled gasps, and his snuffles began to subside into ragged breathing, and then into even breathing. He felt _better_. Like something all caught up in him had been unstoppered. He pulled himself away from the warrior man's chest, and met his gaze. Fai tried to match his stoic look, and weight himself with all the sincerity he thought he could manage.

“Thank you.” He bowed his head again. “I don't have any of the answers yet, but I'm really, really grateful for everything you've done. I hope I can learn to understand you a bit more so I can get some of those answers, but also because I really want to talk to you. I like you, and I don't even have anything to call you. I know you can't tell me your name easily... but is there anything else I can say?”

The warrior man looked thoughtful, and after a moment tugged at his own hair.

“Is it, um, the hair or the colour?” asked Fai, a little nervous.

The man nodded to one side, as if to indicate _the latter_ or _the former_ , but Fai wasn't sure which way round he was meant to be thinking of it, and the confusion must have shown, because straight away the man pointed to the sword in the corner. A silver pommel in the shape of a horrific monster shone out above a black sheath.

“Black? You don't mind it if I call you Mr Black?”

The grin which lit up Mr Black's face looked as though it was going to start _him_ laughing that hard if he wasn't careful. He stroked Fai's hair.

“Um, Mr Black?”

Mr Black moved his head slightly to one side. _I'm listening,_ thought Fai.

“Is that... a tap making that noise in the next room?”

Mr Black bolted.

Fai felt his heart skip a beat for a moment, and then he found himself getting the giggles all over again. It wasn't obvious at _all_ before, but Mr Black was actually quite silly! He'd gotten all worked up over Fai getting upset, and forgot what he was doing – gosh he really hoped it was a bath!

He was thrilled a couple of minutes later, when, after various thrashing sounds, Mr Black reappeared at the door – his socks were wet and had suds on the toes, which gave the game away a bit. Fai hid his smile behind his hand. Mr Black threw a thumb over one shoulder with a cocky grin, as though asking _well, are you coming, then?_

Fai followed him gratefully.

The bathroom was as simple and cluttered and colourful as the rest of the house. There were smooth earthenware tiles over every surface, and halfway up the walls. Some of them were just plain colours, but some of them had intricate little painted designs on them which made Fai think of the palace, just a little. The tub was joined to the wall by a shelf covered with more tiles, and with lots more exciting-looking colourful bottles.

Mr Black hoicked the tattered shift off his body before he could object, and gave him a little push. Fai climbed in obligingly, somehow not minding too much being naked in front of a man who wasn't a servant.

The water felt like sunlight on his skin, and burned his scraped bloody fingers and toes. He'd known in his mind that he must have been filthy – Mr Black's poor _bed_ , he thought guiltily – but his body had been sort of _stuck_ , never feeling much of anything while his magic was deadened. The smell of the stacked fluffy clouds of soap bubbles was unlike anything he'd ever come across, and between floating piles of foam he thought he could see dried petals. Every muscle in his body seemed to release all tension, all at the same time, and for a moment he managed to push off the bottom of the tub and float just a little.

After a while, Fai came back to his senses enough to feel a slight tugging sensation at his scalp, and to hear a picking sort of a noise. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Mr Black had kept all of his hair – his disastrous, body-length, tangled matted mess – out of the water. And he had begun to comb it.

Fai's hair was still so long that Mr Black hadn't even noticed him twisting to look at what he was doing. He was still teasing out the tangles at the very ends, on the bathroom floor. His legs were folded and his countenance completely earnest. The comb was rather pretty, with flowers engraved through its wooden handle. Fai felt reasonably sure that, for all that Mr Black was being kind and gentle with him, he wasn't the person who had chosen it. It was a reassuring feeling. Somebody loved this man. He wasn't a lone nutter, whisking him away into the unknown – he was somebody's beloved husband, most likely.

Fai settled back into the water, and wondered vaguely what his wife must be like.

\---

_The World:_

_Upright: Completion, integration, accomplishment, travel  
Reversed: Lack of completion, lack of closure_


	7. Trois d'épée

“Mr Black?” asked Fai, after a long while. He didn't twist himself to look back at him, but there was a slight answering tap against the tiles - _I am listening,_ thought Fai. “You live here with somebody, don't you? I saw a blonde hair, and, um, a lot of pretty things, like these tiles.”

A thoughtful silence, and then two knocks against the tiles.

“Oh! Can it be two knocks for yes from now on, then, please?”

Two more knocks, and the harsh sound of the comb in his knotted hair continued.

“Did your wife paint them?” Fai asked, thinking his interest polite, though it was also genuine.

One knock – oh.

“You're not married?” asked Fai, surprised, twisting his head again, to try and see Mr Black's expression. Mr Black had an inscrutable look; he seemed mostly focused on Fai's dreadful hair, and gave a cursory single knock against the tiles, without meeting Fai's eyes.

“Ah – you are, but she didn't paint them.” Fai settled down in the bath again, pleased to have understood.

A single knock.

“I don't understand. She did and she didn't?”

Three knocks.

“Does that mean I'm asking the wrong questions?”

Two knocks.

“Oh. Okay.”

Fai considered this for a while. The silence seemed companionable enough, though obviously Mr Black had no choice in the matter. Perhaps he lived with a woman who he loved, who did not love him back. Perhaps it was the other way around. Or she was his ward – that seemed unlikely; she shared his bed. Or she had _purchased_ the tiles – they were _strange_ though, and some of them felt so familiar... Fai found it hard to imagine them being sold to just anybody. Maybe it was just that they weren't married – they lived as though married, but they were of different races, or castes, so they could never be recognised as a couple.

There was something going on, and he didn't understand it.

“You are married.”

A double knock.

“You are married to the lady who chose these tiles.”

Three knocks - _yes and no, cannot answer._

Fai went to bite his thumb while he thought, as had once been his habit, but the sight of his own tattered thumbnail made him put it back into the water with a splash. Noticing how far down the nail was torn, and seeing the scabbing flesh with all the blood soaked out made him uncomfortably aware of how long it was going to take for his fingers and toes to recover.

“She... um, sorry, I'm really getting stuck now –”

An unexpected knock.

“How can I be wrong? I didn't think I even said anything...”

A single knock.

“I started to say... she?”

A single knock.

“She. Um. She's not a woman?”

Out of the blue, two knocks, and a spreading warm embarrassment blushing across Fai's face. _How_ could his wife not be a woman? The only option then, surely, was that she was a man? This was not something which had previously occurred to Fai as a possibility, nor had witnessed ever before, so far as he was aware. But it made sense of their fractured back-and-forth conversation so far. His wife was a man. Husband, then, presumably.

“I'm so sorry! Sorry...” blushed Fai, and ducked under the water a little, trying to balance his desire to hide with his desire to not make Mr Black's self-appointed task of fixing his hair any more difficult.

Muffled through water-filled ears, a faint single knock rang out. He rose back up to the surface, and let his ears slowly clear.

“I mean it though. I am sorry. I'm very inexperienced. I hope I don't cause you any more offence. You've done so very much for me already, and I really don't want to hurt your feelings. I... have brought myself shame. I'm sorry.”

A pause, and then two taps. This, Fai decided, was most likely acceptance.

“Your husband,” and even so, he left a small space for a tap of 'no, you are mistaken,' but did not hear one “painted the tiles?”

Tap, tap.

“He's” _wow, he's male,_ “very good at painting! Some of these remind me of the castle where we were born. I may not have been very happy there, but it was a beautiful place. It – it wasn't their fault...”

Fai found that he was crying again. He was sure he hadn't cried this easily before. It was like the idea of crying was going straight from his mouth to his eyes, without his mind engaging in the process at all. Say something sad and feel the tears all hot on your cheeks straight away. He hadn't even known he felt sad at all at the moment. Perhaps his eyes were just broken.

He cried for a little while. In the quiet bathroom, every sound seemed thunderous, so he tried hard not to give voice to his small snuffled sobs. He was sure that Mr Black knew he was crying, but the man just carried on combing his hair. Every so often Fai could feel him shifting and combing somewhere new. Maybe he should have tried to stop him from combing it out. He didn't need all this hair. It had been quite short before he went into the tower. He must have been in there for a horribly long time, but already it didn't seem that long to look back upon. Something about the way that Mr Black had taken responsibility for his hair felt nice though. As though perhaps he could ask to have it cut shorter later; that the right thing to do now was to rest, and feel the warm water with its gentle scent soothe his body.

“Thank you,” he said, after a while.

Three knocks. Fai looked around again, and saw Mr Black (who had made a little progress from the ratty, knotted ends, and was now several inches up) grinning away to himself.

“You mean to say that I'm asking the wrong thing... when I thank you?”

Mr Black met his eyes, smiled more gently, and knocked twice.

“Then I should just accept that this is what it is? That... you want to take care of me, so that's what you're going to do?”

Without breaking his gaze, Mr Black knocked against the floor twice.

Fai hadn't realised the relief he'd feel upon gaining a little more understanding of his newfound situation, but it was like a screw turning loose in his stomach.

“I would like to say thank you, though,” he mumbled, realising in a somewhat detatched way that he seemed to be crying again. “If you don't want me to say thank you for saving me and bringing me here then I think I understand at least a bit. But please let me say thank you for all the smaller things. The food I ate earlier was really nice. And you have a pretty bathroom. And,” he sniffled, “you didn't have to work so hard on my hair. You could have just cut it off and started again. You're really kind.”

Mr Black knocked once, gently – Fai thought that perhaps this was dismissive acceptance, like “nah,” or _you're too kind_. He realised that Mr Black had exclusively been using his left hand to knock against the tiles. That was the hand which looked unnatural. When he'd seen it more closely in the tower, when Mr Black's eyes had frightened him somewhat, he'd noticed straight away that it didn't have any hair on it, nor any wrinkles at the knuckles, nor the faint freckles and patterns of veins under the skin which he could see clearly enough on Mr Black's other arm, though he had skin much darker than any Fai had seen before.

“Mr Black?”

_Knock, knock._

“Is your left arm... not the arm you were born with?”

 _Knock, knock._ Mr Black met Fai's eyes with another smile, as if reassuring him that it was fine to ask.

“Did you lose the arm?”

_Knock, knock._

“In a fight?”

Hesitation, and then a _knock, knock._

“Was it part of your job?”

A single knock. This was starting to sound complicated.

“Do you think... it would be okay if I asked your husband about it, when he's here? It might be hard to talk about with yes or no questions.”

_Yes._

“Is he away at the moment?”

_Yes._

“Do you know when he's coming back?”

_Yes._

“Today?”

_No._

“Tomorrow?”

_Yes._

“Um. You know how you said you brought me here because _you_ wanted to bring me here? And how your husband is away right now?” Fai bit his lip. “Does he... know that you've brought me here?”

Hesistation. _No._

“Will he be okay with this?”

Hesitation. Three knocks.

“I'm asking the wrong question?”

_Yes._

Fai had some doubts, but he thought perhaps it was time to keep them to himself. Who could be happy finding some strange child in their home? Especially one with magic. But then again, Mr Black seemed to have planned Fai's rescue thoroughly, and he had only said that he was asking the wrong question.

“Could it be that... you believe he will be happy that I'm here, and you believe that if not, he will become happy that I am here?”

Two knocks.

“Because... it'll be a surprise? Then why didn't you tell him?”

Oh! Fai had an idea now.

“You didn't tell him because you had a plan, but you thought it might go wrong, and you might have to come back without me?”

Hesitation, but then two knocks.

“That's nearly right, hmm? Wait, how did you get to Valeria in the first place?”

Fai looked round to Mr Black again. The warrior seemed a little embarrassed, shy about something. Haltingly, he raised his fingers and stroked them against his own throat, then mimed handing something over.

“In... exchange for your voice?” asked Fai, in disbelief.

Mr Black nodded, a little self-consciously.

“Why would you do that? That's a horrible price! Who would take your voice away just to get somewhere? And what if we'd failed? What if I couldn't get you back here? Were you just going to die, and not even tell your husband?” Fai was amazed. He'd gone in minutes from not knowing two men might see fit to marry one another to absolute outrage on behalf of the man he perceived as the more gentle of the two. You _couldn't_ marry somebody and not tell them something this important, you just couldn't!

Mr Black continued to meet his gaze, with a faint, slightly faltering smile.

“Did you think it would hurt him less if you died and he wasn't anticipating it beforehand?” asked Fai, wondering where all this anger was coming from.

The warrior gave a slight nod. Seeing that Fai was still giving him an angry look, he rapped three times on the floor.

“There's more to it than that?” Fai sighed, and sank back into the bath, which had cooled a little but was still pleasant enough.

_Yes._

“I know there must be really. Because I don't know you at all, but you seem to know lots about me.”

_Yes._

“But you're not from Valeria.”

_Yes._

“Have you ever lived in Valeria?”

_No._

“You know somebody from Valeria?”

_Yes._

“Do you know them... very well?”

_Yes._

“Is it your husband?” asked Fai, with surprise.

_Yes._

“Your husband's from Valeria? But, um, won't he think I'm dangerous and frightening?”

_No._

Fai found himself waiting for the second knock, but it didn't happen.

“He's not scared of me, and he knows who I am?”

_Yes._

“Have I met him, by any chance?” Fai was wracking his memory for old servants. He had been in the tower for a long time, and any one of his former attendants could have forged a new life in a new world. But though some of them had been gentle enough, most of the servants had kept the twins at arms length. They were to be kept alive and healthy, naturally enough – they _were_ royalty, after all – but they were ill-omened, and one of them had to die for the other to be considered... socially acceptable...

_You are asking the wrong questions._

“Well... I'm looking forward to meeting him.”

_Yes._

\---

_Three of Swords:_

_Upright: Painful separation, sorrow, heartbreak, grief, rejection  
Reversed: Releasing pain, optimism, forgiveness_


	8. Le Grand Prêtre

The adult Fai – tall, married to Kurogane, and with a small smile constantly on his face – was on the road home, with mild trepidation in his heart. It was so like dear Kuro-chin to keep his troubles to himself. Why was it that he seemed to feel that he couldn't trust Fai with his whole self?

Fai knew that this was a little hypocritical – but then, he had been _honest_ in his reticence; he was open about his past trauma, and it should be obvious that a man in his position might hesitate to trust another person completely again. But he had been told all about dear Kuro-wan's ~dark and mysterious past~ long ago, and not one thing which had gone wrong in that man's life had been his own fault. Certainly it sounded as though Kuro-nya had been a little wild – he'd even been thrown out of court, after a fashion – but it wasn't the kind of drama that Fai felt he couldn't cope with. Kuro-chin had, after all, been sent away mostly because he needed to grow up a little more. He'd told Fai that he'd long since forgiven Tomoyo-hime for lying about the circumstances under which he was sent away, and Fai had felt no reason to doubt his lover's clear, bright eyes as he'd discussed the matter. His Kuro-ron was a good man, from a good home, with a good mentor and whose strong chest housed a good heart. Why would a man with all these gifts feel that there were things he couldn't share with his husband?

Fai's bag was heavy with interesting things. Some of them were for work, sure enough, but he'd been distracted – concerned – and he just hadn't been able to stop himself from spotting small items which he thought might brighten the house, or please his Kuro-wan. Along a cursory few bottles of common ingredients he'd stocked up on were various wrapped gewgaws. A glass fishing buoy with a hole cut into it, designed to be secured upon a crystal such as the one which lit their bedroom in the winter evenings; it would disperse the light in interesting colours, and would shield Kuro-pii's eyes, which Fai suspected were more sensitive than his own. There were a couple of bottles of what Fai judged to be fine rice-wine; he hadn't grown up drinking it, but he was becoming more knowledgable, he felt. Kuro-riri could share it with him, if he asked nicely. Rolled tightly was a new mat for the front step; the old one had been losing fibres, which were being walked through the house and showing up everywhere lately. Some artful little ties with a minor charm which kept them in place; Fai hoped that they would be useful in his husband's new garden. There were more things, he thought vaguely, but the trip seemed hazy and hard to recall already. He'd picked at his food last night and the restaurant owner had worried aloud at the change in Fai's demeanour since his last visit – it wasn't that he was _so_ loyal a customer, or had made _so_ many trips to Baima, but that he was the only passer-by with hair and skin so pale, and even though he'd adopted local clothing after a while, his way of wearing it never seemed to fit in either. He knew, if he cared to consider it, that he wore it too loose, too flowing, too colourful – too feminine – and occasionally he resented the looks Kuro-mi seemed to get for it; they were _his_ clothes, and, what's more, he wasn't a frightened wife with no say. The women around here were far from weak – Fai felt on some level that he and Kuro-chu would never have come to root themselves here if the people around them treated one another poorly as a matter of course – but there was a weight of history, of expectation, and those who deviated from the norm called attention to the fact that the old ways of doing things had long since evolved into a comfortable, practical status quo.

It surely wasn't anything serious, or Kuro-puu would have spoken to him about it, wouldn't he? Probably just... some niggling thing, waiting to be resolved. But Fai couldn't lie to himself; the weight of the sake bottles in the bag across his shoulders reminded him with each of his quickening paces down the rough path, dragging him down like despair writ large: _something is wrong, something is wrong, something is wrong._

He rounded the corner and saw his home. The dusk light was still warm, the stream was flowing, sparkling over smooth pebbles and the air was heavy, laden with the scent of magnolia and pink mempat. And there was Kurogane's broad back: he was watering his beans. The love and relief that welled up in Fai's throat seemed almost enough to choke him, but he smiled through it and elected not to show any alarm as he calmed his gait, and finally made it back to his husband. _You are here, you are real, you are whole, you are safe._

“Ah, Kuro-papa!” he shouted up the path. “I've brought two bottles if you're going to be good!” He extracted one from his bag with a flourish, and waved it above his head.

Kurogane looked up, a grim expression on his face. Fai nearly dropped the bottle. _Something is WRONG_ – and he was _home_ , his face buried in Kurogane's chest, the ninja's good hand twisted into his hair. “I missed you,” whispered Fai into his chest, half-hoping he wouldn't hear. Kurogane gently pushed his face away, which Fai took as the cue for a kiss, and kiss they did – deep and rich, making his heart thunder in his chest and his feet stretch as he pushed up into his lover's arms. The sake bottle fell into the raised, tilled earth, with a sonorous thud and a slosh, and Fai's hands found their way into Kurogane's shirt. His skin was warm; he was perspiring slightly from his work. Fai nuzzled into his neck as if everything could be made right should he just press their bodies back into one, as if they'd been halves of a whole all along. But Kurogane was pushing him away again – not too far, not a rejection, but a demand for eye contact. He fixed him with a low, intense gaze.

Fai tried to keep his voice light and his tone even. “So you're finally going to tell me what's been bothering you?” he smiled.

Kurogane smiled at that too, and then slowly, silently, he shook his head. Fai's stomach twisted.

 _“What have you done?”_ he whispered.

Kurogane gave him a thumbs up. Fai's heart rocketed towards his feet.

“Is it your voice?” he whispered.

Uneasily, his husband gave a curt nod.

“Why have you done this? _Shit,_ you can't tell me.” He searched Kurogane's face for clues, but none were forthcoming. Was the sadness in his husband's face meant for him? Had he done this knowing how much it would hurt him? Perhaps then he could forgive him, a little. Fai ran his fingertips across his husband's soft cheek, wondering how to ask.

“Is – is your voice coming back?”

Kurogane shook his head.

“Can it ever?”

Kurogane shook his head.

“Answer me just this: was it worth it?” Fai watched his eyes, desperate for information. He wanted to _help_ , to _fix_ this, but – there must surely have been a reason behind it? Kurogane had gone behind his _back_ , he should be _outraged_ , but all he wanted to do was to hold him and cry.

Kurogane waited for a moment to respond. His eyes, with their gemstone glow, seemed dark and heavy and filled with secrets, but as he blinked, his eyelashes caught Fai's gaze, as if running in slow-motion. He is soft, he is warm, he is kind. He will not have done this to hurt anybody.

Kurogane nodded.

They sank together into the flowerbed, in shared relief and fatigue, Kurogane's arms around Fai's shoulders, Fai's arms caught up against Kurogane's chest. They had both held so much back from one another, and now, despite the pain, there was release at last. They were both going to be filthy, and Fai wondered now why he'd ever cared about dirt at all. His man was _hurting._

“Was this a price?” he asked, trying to hold back tears, and sure he already knew the answer.

His husband kissed him in response.

Fai pulled away, but not quickly. “Will I understand?”

Kurogane nodded, forcefully, and held Fai's hand over his heart. He nodded again.

“Must I forgive you?”

Kurogane watched his face for a while. Fai knew that he himself had been terrible at expressing his true feelings, good or bad, for many years. He hoped his real thoughts were showing: that he _would_ forgive Kurogane for throwing away his voice; he would do it right away, before even finding out why he had done it, if Kurogane only told him that he must. Kuro-papa knew his heart better than any person alive today. Perhaps better than he knew it himself. He was always certain of when to throw a punch, a pair of socks or a kiss. Their lives were inextricably intertwined, like the beans running up Kurogane's grid of bamboo poles. Impulsively, Fai kissed him again: harsh and searching, his tongue probing Kurogane's mouth, and his frustration and pain coming out as a bite at Kurogane's lip, which made his ninja shudder soundlessly, and hold him tighter.

They cried there, in the flowerbed, Kurogane knowing everything, and Fai knowing nothing. They held one another until Fai's legs went to sleep, until he became overly aware of the pain of the bag dragging against his shoulder, until the sunset dimmed further and until he whispered his question into his lover's ear once more:

_“Must I forgive you?”_

Kurogane was ready, by then: he looked him firmly in the eye, and gave him a nod.

Fai nodded back, satisfied. Hurting, but satisfied.

“You are forgiven,” he said, quietly. He picked up the fallen sake bottle – earth-encrusted but perfectly intact – and hauled himself to his feet. Staggering slightly on numbed legs, he climbed the shallow wooden steps of the porch, and opened the kitchen door, to an incomprehensible sight.

On the long bench at their kitchen table sat a child. He was wearing one of Fai's robes, with the too-long sleeves tied up with a belt sash at his back. There were probably breeches of some kind under there, but the robe was so oversized that it was hard to tell. His little legs stuck out, with his objectionably bony knees on display. He was holding a mug of hot chocolate with great care, two hands wrapped neatly around the body of the mug, and the handle left poking out from between his hands, uselessly. The child's hair was spectacularly long, and was curled over his shoulder in a plait with a fiddly little end, bound slightly inexpertly with a strip of leather and some glass beads. His feet dangled just over the floorboards. His hands were bandaged and his toes looked shiny with salve. Fai vaguely remembered mixing that salve, or one just like it, before he'd left for Baima, and hoped that his husband had left it to cool properly before use, or its efficacy would be reduced. Somehow for a moment it was all he could think of.

Later he would wanly recall this as an embarrassing way to react. It was over-the-top; it was absurd, theatrical – hysterical, even. He would bring out the story and laugh about it with others, though some would see through him and would not laugh along.

For now though, he was unable to truly understand what he was seeing. The boy, his bandaged hands, the feel of his magic – it seemed to shut down something in his mind. Fai saw the room fly upwards, out of his field of vision, and realised vaguely that his legs had stopped holding him up.

The prisoner Fai's first glimpse of his adult twin ended this way: a tall, fair person, rushing into the room with his boots on, stopping in his tracks, turning white as a sheet, and folding up in a dead faint on the kitchen floor.

\---

_The Hierophant:_

_Upright: Religion, group identification, conformity, tradition, beliefs  
Reversed: Restriction, challenging the status quo_


	9. L'as de Coupes

The child Fai had known Mr Black was agitated. From the time that the sun had started to go down, he'd been making little jobs for himself which let him stay near the door. He had swept the doorsteps, polished the glass of the little window by the door and dusted for cobwebs all round the kitchen ceiling, with a particular and noticeable attention to the wall containing the door. Fai wondered if this was supposed to be subtle: all these jobs had allowed Mr Black to watch the path running by the house at least a little.

He wanted to intercept his husband, and make sure to prepare him in some way before he could see Fai, didn't he?

Fai had spent the day feeling a little as though they were trying to stay out of trouble together. He had tried on a variety of clothes with Mr Black until they'd found some that they were able to make fit him well enough – he could move around, and they weren't causing him any discomfort. They had fussed with his hair together until they'd been able to get it out of the way. On reflection, Fai suspected that Mr Black was going to ask his husband to do something about it upon his return; nobody needed hair this dramatic – it came past the backs of his knees, even with all the very worst knots cut out. After attempting a few different things, Mr Black had eventually plaited it for him, and they'd picked through a box of decorations together and found some beads to tie into the base. Mr Black was plainly worried about his husband's return, but he was also trying not to show it, so Fai hadn't asked. Today had been fun, anyway!

There had been other errands, but not so taxing; Fai suspected that Mr Black was taking it slowly on his account. He knew he was too thin, and doing very much at all made him feel tired and need to sit down. Mr Black looked pleased every time he ate anything or took an interest in food, so Fai was trying to eat every time he was offered a meal, and to snack when the mood took him. And it was taking him often: he didn't know the names or the origins of most of the food he'd tried so far, but there had been a great variety. Much of it seemed centred on sharp, sour or crunchy tastes; it wasn't like the sweet, delicate food he'd been accustomed to before. The jars many of the pickles came from were unmarked – Mr Black and his husband might have grown and pickled much of this food themselves. The thought was warming, somehow, and Fai looked forward to meeting the other man, despite his nervousness.

Two men! Fai knew very well that he was the strange one in this world – he could use magic, he had pale skin and hair, and he was a _twin_ , but nonetheless... he'd never come across such an idea before. Who cooked and who cleaned and who took care of the garden, he had wondered at first, but it quickly became apparent that Mr Black was adept at all of these things – perhaps his husband was too. Picturing them together seemed the hardest thing – there was nothing soft about Mr Black except for his face when he watched Fai and thought Fai wasn't watching back. Did the other man have all the rest of the softness? So far Mr Black had already shown him how to do several small jobs around the house, but had forcibly pushed him into sitting down at the first outward sign of his fatigue, making Fai feel very much as though he was more interested in keeping his mind occupied than putting him to work, or that he was possibly concentrating on giving him some independence while they stayed together. They had swept the kitchen, and pulled Fai's loose hairs out of the drain (washing his hair after the knots were combed out had been such a production that Mr Black had had to run a fresh bath just to keep Fai warm) – they had watered the plants on the windowsill, and best of all, Mr Black had shown him how to cook the white grain food from scratch, how to season it, and how to shape it into a ball with something inside, and how to use the green-black dried vegetable sheets to finish it off. It seemed as though you could put anything inside it as long as it tasted good, and Fai had independently made some that afternoon containing the white sharp-tasting creamy condiment stored on the cold shelf in the cupboard, along with a spoon full of pickled nuts in each one – he had enjoyed them vastly, though he wasn't sure if Mr Black was convinced.

Mr Black had stopped his busywork to make Fai a cup of hot chocolate – now _this_ he recognised! – and had waved a ball of string and pair of scissors at Fai as he went outside to fuss with his vegetable patch. As soon as Fai was sure that he wasn't required to follow him, he had settled on the long single bench which ran by the kitchen table. The other side of the table was pushed against the wall, probably to conserve space – all meals eaten here were shared side by side. It was very different to a lordly upbringing in Valeria – but it was warm in ways Fai had never seen before.

It was hard work to hold onto the mug with his newly bandaged fingers, but the cream Mr Black had shared with him had been a blessed relief. Fai's sole solace back in the tower had been to watch his brother below him, but the only window had been so high up the wall that he'd thought looking down on him would be a one-time thing. But there was nothing, _nothing_ there but Yuui – and he'd found himself scrambling up the wall more and more often, until his fingers and toes had bled and bled. And he had waited, after that, for time to heal him, but time moved so _slowly_ in the tower, so he had climbed over and over, and hung from the bars, and all he could even see of Yuui was the top of his head, but he was there and he was moving and he was still alive, and it was so worth the pain – and they had stopped hurting in the end, anyway.

What had all that been for? Here he was, really quite happy considering, but without Yuui – and now he had to wait to see whether his fingers and toes could even recover from the scraping away of his flesh and the shattering of his nails. He was uncomfortably aware of quite how much skin seemed to be gone, and a little uncertain as to whether he would ever get the feeling back right up to the tips, even if they healed nicely. If he had done all this to himself whilst thinking of Yuui, how had he left him so easily? But perhaps Mr Black's husband would be able to tell him more, Fai thought, as he tried to push from his mind the intrusive image of his brother, far below him, in the pit. Focusing on Yuui right now, he knew uneasily, would only make things worse. And Mr Black didn't seem like he would lie to him. It seemed right that Yuui would be safer without him around, no matter how much it hurt.

And they would see each other again one day. He was sure of it.

There were voices outside – or, voice, at least. A man's voice, high, and somewhat distressed. Fai couldn't make out the words.There were pauses, as if somebody was expected to reply, but there was no second voice. Then it _must_ be Mr Black's husband at last. It made him uncomfortable, Fai thought. The closest and most beloved person in his life was Yuui. And he would have hated it so much if Yuui had lost his voice forever without telling him why. He really did feel bad for Mr Black's husband right now. Why _did_ Mr Black care so much, anyway?

Fai sipped uneasily at the hot chocolate, knowing that Mr Black was fielding his husband's interest in the situation, and feeling that he had better sit tight. The chocolate was good; it contained a generous dollop of thick cream, and it felt as though it was sticking to his ribs from the inside. He wondered what Mr Black cooked when he _wasn't_ trying to fatten somebody up.

The door opened. Fai's heart leapt into his mouth.

A tall, thin, flustered man was entering the room. His clothes were colourful and stylish, and his bearing was forceful. He was, as Fai had guessed from his delicate paintings, the prettier of the two, but now he could see him in the flesh, Fai didn't think him all that feminine. He was wearing thick boots (on our nice clean floor!) and carrying a large canvas shoulder bag – he seemed strong, and self-assured. His eyes – which were blue, and long-lashed – loooked a little pink and puffy, as if he had just been crying.

And the second that Mr Black's husband made eye contact with him, he reacted as though Fai had shot a bolt of magic straight into his chest. He crumpled to the floorboards and dropped the heavy bottle he had been holding. For one heart-stopping moment, Fai thought it had smashed, but it was just loud. It rolled a little way, but Mr Black's husband didn't move. Fai thrust the mug down and ran to the man's side.

“Sir, sir! I'm sorry if I frightened you!”

He touched the man's head tentatively and heard a small groan emerge. This was, Fai would ponder later, probably why he didn't call out for Mr Black right away; he was lost in the moment, waiting for the husband to tell him what to do.

“Are you alright?” asked Fai nervously. “You fell down when you saw me – I think you fainted, I've only heard of it, I've never seen it before – are you okay? I'm so sorry if I frightened you – do you want me to get Mr Black?”

The man looked up muzzily. “It's really you, isn't it?” he breathed, in apparent wonderment. To Fai's amazement, he realised the man's eyes were filling with tears.

He had never had an adult look straight at him like this before – holding his gaze with unguarded love and affection, even as he tried visibly to control himself.

Fai felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. There was a thought threatening to creep into his consciousness that he could barely dare to entertain. Mr Black had said the man was from Valeria, and that he was known to him, but who could this be? He didn't greatly resemble any family of Fai's, except perhaps his mother, who he remembered from portraits. According to the court artists, she had had great swathes of white-blonde hair, and gentle, laughing eyes.

_“Take us both to where and when this stone was charmed with my voice.”_

The only words Mr Black had ever spoken to him echoed in his mind.

Words which meant more to Fai now than they had then. The two of them had travelled in time as well as space to get here.

Fai hadn't told his eyes that he was feeling anything, but the tears started off again. He tried to ask the question, but all that would come out were sobs. The collapsed man in front of him was scrambling to kneel, and Fai was pushing himself into his arms –

“Yuui, Yuui!” he howled, as he buried his face in his brother's chest.

“Fai! My god, he did it, you're Fai, I'm so sorry, how could it take someone else to do this, you're _Fai_ you're not me you're Fai!” hiccoughed Yuui. “ _Fai_!”

Kurogane leaned against the doorjamb, string and scissors still in hand.

He smiled.

\---

_Ace of Cups:_

_Upright: Love, compassion, creativity, overwhelming  
Reversed: Blocked or repressed emotions_


	10. Six de Coupes

Fai was cradled in his brother's lap as Yuui rocked him slightly. Yuui still hadn't taken off his boots, and Mr Black was standing in the doorway and letting the warm kitchen air out into the cooling evening, but nobody seemed to mind anything at all right now.

“There's so much I've got to ask,” whispered Fai, pressing his face into Yuui's neck.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” murmured Yuui, still rocking his much younger twin – the movement was soothing them both, it seemed, as it kept them so aware of how closely they were holding one another. Even so, Yuui kept changing his grip on Fai – a hand behind his head and an arm around his shoulders became a hand tangled in the base of his plait and the _other_ hand on top of his head, as if he couldn't hold him enough. “I left you, I know they made me, but how could I have – I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry –”

“Yuui, Mr Black made me leave you there,” protested Fai earnestly. “I think we changed time. Don't be mad at him, he made me do all sorts of things, so I think that means you'll be safe in the past too.”

“What happened?” asked Yuui, dazed. “How did you do it? For all these years I've been desperate to have saved you... Kurogane doesn't even have any magic...”

“Kurogane?” sniffled Fai.

“That's his name... Mr Black is a nickname.”

Fai laughed. “He wrote his name for me in the snow and I couldn't read it!”

“He told me once that you had to be able to read six thousand characters in his language to have attained basic literacy...”

The twins laughed together, each easily understanding the affection the other felt for Kurogane.

“He broke down the tower wall with a huge hammer, Yuui. He had a image of his voice on a charmed stone, and it told me to make a magic double of myself which would last for at least a day, and then move us in time and space so we were back here. Then he used lots and lots of hand gestures and nods and smiles and things to explain the rest – I had to fix the wall before we left, and the copy of me had to leave a body when it died, things like that. Brother, did you see me die?”

Yuui, who had been holding his emotions almost in check until this point, burst into childlike tears again. “I saw you,” he sobbed. “I saw you thrown from the _tower_ , Fai, I saw your neck snap and they let me keep your body and I had it for _years_ because I wanted to do something for you, _anything_ – but your body was _broken_ and you were _gone_...”

Fai dried his brother's tears a little with the bandages around his fingers. “I'm here, I'm here,” he said, helplessly. He caught Mr Black's eye – Kurogane's eye. The big warrior nodded stoically: _you are doing the right thing,_ thought Fai.

“He traded his voice away for the power to come to the right time and place, I think,” Fai said gently, shaking his brother slightly.

“Yeah,” sniffled Yuui weakly. “I'd gathered that. We have a friend who is a witch. He grants wishes. The price can be very high. I'm not mad at him – it would have taken a lot of power.”

“Are you mad at – Ku-rogane?” The name was particularly foreign, and felt strange in his mouth.

“I promised to forgive him as soon as I found out he'd traded it for something. I knew he wouldn't have done it if he didn't think he had a really good reason, but I had no idea it would be something this important. Fai, I'm upset that I'll never hear his voice again, and I'm hurt that he didn't talk to me about this before I left for Baima, but it's _you_ , he brought you back _alive_ – how could I be angry with him after that?” Yuui pulled away a little from Fai; he was looking at him in wonder.

“I was mad,” admitted Fai, “when I found out he had a husband and he hadn't told him. Oh!” His brain caught up with his mouth. “Is it you? I was so surprised when I realised who you were that I forgot I was expecting his husband to come in...”

“He told you we were wed?” asked Yuui, amused. He looked up and tried to catch Kurogane's eye; all of a sudden, Kurogane seemed to be attending to an itch in his ear, and had apparently completely missed this part of the conversation.

“Then... you're not...?”

“Kuro- _wan_ and I have a particularly close relationship,” smiled Yuui. “We've never found the opportunity to have it recognised by the law of this land where we've settled, but we've exchanged rings, we have no other romantic interests – yes, yes, we're married in all the ways that matter. I'm just amused that he told you so in so many words, especially as it must have been an effort for you two to communicate with any precision. Did his ring work in Valeria?”

“Not when he was inside the tower,” Fai explained – “but I didn't know, because he couldn't tell me, and I thought he was so silent and fierce – and his _eyes_...”

“Oho, yes, scary, aren't they?” teased Yuui, with great pleasure dripping from every word, _seemingly_ unaware of Kurogane glaring at him from the doorway. For the first time Fai felt that he was starting to get a sense of his brother – his _adult_ brother – as the person he now was. Playful and artistic, and very much in love – this much he knew now.

“You really love him, don't you?” asked Fai, a question-which-wasn't-a-question. He smiled. “I didn't know that was a possibility. We knew all the same things when we were the same age. Did you have to find out later that falling in love with a man was something you could do?”

Yuui appeared to consider this for a while. “Fai,” he said softly, “when I was your age, I don't think I imagined that anybody at all would ever love me.” Fai saw Kurogane flinch in the corner of his eye. “If I ever imagined marriage, I imagined marriage for the sake of Valeria. But while I love women, I don't believe that I have ever been in love with a woman. I think that loving a man was very difficult for me too – I don't want you to think that you have to feel the same way as me, because I hope it's going to be different for you, but I had to see you _die_. I think that made a lot of things very difficult for me. Emotionally. I was very closed off. For a very long time. I don't mind if you feel that way right now or if you stay that way forever. But I think if you'd asked me when I'd just gotten out of the pit who it was that I'd fall in love with one day, I don't know if I would have had words for you at all.”

Fai considered all of this for a long time.

“Yuui? Was Mother sad in the portrait which used to hang in the Long Room?”

Yuui held him tighter, and remained silent for a long time.

“I know the painting you mean. It's been so long, but I can picture it so clearly... Fai, I want to give you a fair answer, but I don't think it's right for me to judge. I'm not sure when it was painted. I can't imagine she was sad all the time _before_ we were born. But she was smiling in the painting. I know that doesn't necessarily mean that she was happy, but I like to think she was happy. At least sometimes.”

“Not after, though.”

“No. Not after we were born. But you know... I've travelled through many worlds now, and not one of them, Fai, not one of them, as far as I could see, had the twin taboo. At all. It wasn't us, and I hope you know that. It wasn't our fault. Twins just _are_. They're just born sometimes. I even assisted at the birth of twins once...”

Fai shuddered.

“I've got a lot of questions, Yuui,” he said, attempting to change the subject. “Should we take turns?”

“Okay. You first, you've probably got the most.”

“How did you meet Mr Black? Um, Kuro-gane?”

Yuui seemed gobsmacked by the question. Fai couldn't guess why until his brother started to explain: a messy, lengthy story, filled with fascinating people and colourful worlds. Kurogane quietly came into the house properly, took off his boots and put away his gardening things, and, though listening in, gently took Yuui's bag away from him and began to unpack it, examining its contents closely and discerning their purpose without interrupting his husband's story. When he had finished, he departed the room briefly, and returned with two cushions and two blankets, which he insistently pressed upon the twins, who didn't get off of the floor or stop talking to each other, but did oblige him by making themselves more comfortable. Kurogane touched Yuui's discarded mug with his good hand, sighed silently and went back to the hob, where he began to prepare a large pan full of hot chocolate. Every explanation Yuui could give raised five more questions in Fai's mind.

“But what did you think the very first time you saw him?” asked Fai, Yuui's turn forgotten entirely.

“Remember, Fai, I'd been told all my life I was going to have to kill him. So I tried not to think much at all.” Yuui looked up at Kurogane, still silently stirring the pan of hot chocolate. “Do you want to hear this, Papa? It's not terribly flattering...” Kurogane gave him a harsh nod, a _do-what-you-will_ sort of glare, and when Yuui looked back at Fai to continue speaking, only Fai saw Kurogane's wink.

“I thought he looked rough and uncivilized. I thought he was overly serious, and that he'd be fun to play with. I wasn't very good at looking people in the eye for long back then, so I kept thinking I'd imagined his eyes were red to start with, so I wanted to get a better look... and I thought he would turn out to be simple.”

Kurogane rapped his wooden spoon against the worktop to get his husband's attention. Yuui started at the noise. “Yes, Mr Black?” Kurogane rolled his eyes, and raised an unmarked small glass jar.

“I'm not sure, I'll ask,” agreed Yuui. “Kuro-chan would like to know if you'd enjoy nutmeg in your hot chocolate this time. I don't think you've had it on its own much before, but they used to put it on pork sometimes, and in apple pies other times. It's a warm, strong flavour. It reminds me of raisins, and also sunsets, sort of. I like it.”

“Then I probably will too,” smiled Fai back. “Brother, how do you feel about your assessment of Kurogane now?”

“I think that I was an arrogant fool, and that even if he had been simple he would have been ten times the man I was back then. I'm _also_ extremely glad that I never had to kill him.”

“Can you explain to me again what happened to the _real_ princess in the end?” asked Fai. Kurogane pressed a fresh mug of steaming hot chocolate into his hands; he gripped it carefully. Yuui launched back into his explanation of their showdown with Fei Wang Reed, seamlessly accepting a mug of hot chocolate from Kurogane with a nod of thanks and appreciation. The big warrior vanished for some of the rest of the story, but when he appeared with another cushion, another blanket, another cup of hot chocolate, and a tactfully raised eyebrow, both twins immediately patted the same spot on the floor without breaking the flow of the conversation. And so the three of them sat until the wee small hours of the morning, with Yuui explaining huge things in simple words, and tiny things as if they were life-changing. Fai, constantly on the edge of sleep, but thrilled by the very sound of his adult twin's voice, hanging on every word. And Kurogane, unable to speak to the twins using the voice he'd once had, but included in every recounted tale, with a “didn't she, Kuro-ron,” or a “I don't remember, what do you think, Papa?”

His wish, he thought, as he sipped his hot chocolate, had come at a bargain price.

\---

_Six of Cups:_

_Upright: Reunion, nostalgia, childhood memories, innocence  
Reversed: Stuck in the past, naivety, unrealistic_


	11. Quatre de Baton

They slept in a tangle, too many people for one bed, and not minding at all. Yuui's outstretched limbs got in everybody's way, Kurogane's prosthetic arm got cold in the middle of the night, and Fai's hair got absolutely everywhere.

When Fai awoke in the small and silent pre-dawn hours, he became afraid – afraid that none of this could be real, that perhaps he had already died in the pit from a broken neck – or that, if it were real, that his heart couldn't hold all of these feelings, and it would simply stop beating. Again, he hadn't realised that he was crying – perhaps he had cried before, in the tower, and with nobody there to notice, had stopped noticing it himself. But this time it _was_ noticed: his adult twin sleepily dragged him into his arms and stroked his hair with those great big hands.

“Sorry,” whispered Fai, trying not to wake Kurogane, and burying his face in Yuui's chest.

“Why are you sorry?” asked Yuui, mildly.

Not wanting to apologise for apologising, Fai stayed quiet at that, and eventually the crying seemed to go away. Sleep felt like floating on this needlessly soft bed, and on several occasions Fai felt himself jolted awake by the sensation that his soul had been rising up out of his body. But his brother was breathing beside him, one hand still around Fai's shoulders as Yuui slept, and Fai could feel the warmth on his other side, where Kurogane was silently doing the same.

Eventually, Fai twisted his hand into Kurogane's hair. He got a firm grip, so that it wouldn't just slip away if he fell asleep, and then he _did_ sleep again at last. A deep, red sleep, and when he awoke he remembered no dreams at all.

The air smelled sweet and floral, and there was a bubbling sound coming from the kitchen. Yuui was singing loudly and tunelessly – a nonsense song about the breakfast he was cooking, while he cooked it. Apparently Fai was about to be fed porridge with flowers in it, which didn't sound as though it could possibly be nice – but the heavy scent hanging in the air made him think of honey, and perhaps, if Yuui had had any hand in the growing and pickling of those delicious vegetables, this might be alright after all. Kurogane was lying naked beside him, relaxed and without apparent shame – Fai got the feeling that he shouldn't feel any shame on his behalf, either. These two men had their own ways of doing things, and they already seemed to make a lot more sense than the court rules of Valeria. Fai felt that he should let himself be carried along for now, and not assume they had done anything wrong unless they got cross with each other. It was easy, with Kurogane's clothes off, to see where the bandages went from and to – they covered the part of his body which changed from man to machine. Had the arm been replaced only recently, then, or was Kurogane injured in such a way that his flesh would remain damaged indefinitely?

_“Breakfast for three,_  
_enhanced by a bee,_  
_fiddle-dee-dee,_  
_get up and see,_  
_OR IT'S ALL FOR ME,_  


came the offhanded shouts from the kitchen. Kurogane, seeing that Fai was awake, rolled his eyes. Fai giggled – he couldn't help it. They were _sweet_ together. It might feel stranger if he saw the two men kissing, he supposed, but so far they had just teased each other and been kind to each other, and each seemed to understand what the other wanted or needed even though Kurogane had traded his voice away. It was how Fai felt a loving, happy couple _should_ act, though he was vaguely aware that he'd never really met a man and wife happy enough to judge these two by.

“Does it rhyme when you hear it?” asked Fai.

Kurogane waved his hand flat in the air - _some of it_.

“Every line ends with an 'ee' sound, how I'm hearing it,” said Fai. “Oh wow. I guess without translation magic I might be one of the only people left alive who can speak the same language as Yuui...”

Kurogane, yawning silently, fumbled in a side drawer, and pulled out a crumpled garment with long, built-in straps – were these his house clothes, something he could put on quickly and wear for comfort? The robe he pulled on first made sense to Fai's eyes, but the trousers only came halfway up his legs until they turned into some kind of big skirt, and the straps had to be done up at the front and at the back. Fai had slept in the soft, oversized robes he'd been lent, and surmised that he could probably get away with keeping them on for breakfast. Kurogane moved naturally in his strange clothes, and the pleats of the trousers swished around his ankles with a stiff and quiet dignity. The two of them entered the kitchen together, and Yuui's face lit up like a sunrise when he saw them.

“There's sweet porridge and coffee and I'm going to use up all the eggs later,” he said cheerfully, thrusting some coloured rag mats onto the table, ready to set the food down. The porridge had whole flowers sticking up out of it, but it smelled like cream again, and there was a thick drizzle of honey across its surface. Kurogane looked somehow comical with his bowl before him – his cooking had been sharp and harsh and delicious, but it had never been especially pretty – but he dug in straight away, and Fai followed suit. As soon as he'd seen Kurogane eat a blossom, he did the same. He couldn't identify the flower, but it was soft and fleshy and clung to his tongue. It didn't actually taste very strong at all, but it was fun to eat, and he soon found himself picking out all of the flowers, and eating them first, so that they wouldn't be spoiled, overcooked by the hot oats around them. He became aware that Yuui was watching him without eating, and looked up to speak, thanks on his tongue, but was interrupted before he could begin.

“May I make you a coffee the way I like it?” his brother said, with a lazy, languid look.

“If you don't mind, Yuui!” blurted Fai, between mouthfuls. “I'd like to learn to cook like both of you as soon as I can, though!”

“Did Kurogane show you anything?” smiled Yuui, as he fussed around for components of his favoured drink.

“Every time he cooked, we had a white grain?” began Fai – “Rice,” interrupted his brother – “and yesterday we cooked it together from scratch, and he showed me how to press it into a ball with something tasty on the inside. I had mine with pickled nuts and sauce.”

“ _Onigiri_ ,” said Yuui, pouring a drop of cream from a spotted jug. The word sounded comfortable on his tongue.

“Onigiri? Yuui, can you speak a lot of Kurogane's language?”

“Afraid not,” pouted Yuui, depositing a small cup and saucer neatly in front of his twin. “I'd have tried to learn, you know, if you'd only told me you were going to trade away your voice. I feel like I've missed an opportunity, Kuro-nya.”

Kurogane glared at his husband, and pointed his thumb towards the floorboards.

“I'm not that bad! Surely I'm saying it right after all this time and after all these riceballs? _Oh-nih-gih-ree_?” Yuui passed him a small cup and saucer too; Kurogane's coffee was black, and looked strong. Kurogane rolled his eyes, but as he accepted the saucer, his hand brushed Yuui's. Yuui blushed slightly. Kurogane mouthed a word, his eyebrows raised slightly, questioning. Yuui watched Kurogane's lips closely as he mouthed it again.

“Ah. Yes. I probably should mention that, shouldn't I? Bit much for breakfast, isn't it? Ah, well.” Yuui sat between Kurogane and Fai, and Kurogane jostled him, elbowing him in the side. Yuui began to eat his own porridge with a thoughtful look. “Fai... Kurogane would like me to talk to you about names. I don't want you to feel strange about all of this, because none of it is your fault... I'd like it if you could take just a moment to imagine that I had died in the pit, and you had been freed – and that you were told that you were free because you'd chosen my death. It was a difficult time for me. My feelings got very mixed up, and – there was magic involved too...” Yuui took another spoonful of porridge.

“I don't know what I would have thought or done if somebody told me it was my fault,” said Fai, quietly. “That was Fei Wang Reed, was it?” He took a sip of the coffee. It was still very hot, but it had a rich, nutty flavour, tamped down slightly by the smoothness of the cream. “I thought I might not see you again for... two days? It was horrible.” He realised Kurogane was giving him a capital-l Look. “I trusted you _really_ , but me and Yuui had never been apart before. I couldn't ask you how long it was going to be. And I was scared.”

Yuui finished his mouthful. “The thing is... the person who brought me out of the pit asked my name. And I was standing there with your body in my arms... and it wasn't fair, none of it was fair... so I told him _I_ was Fai. Nobody knew any differences between us, so they believed me, and I was called Fai up until – well, up until I saw you last night, I guess. Kuro-ron knows my real name, but I've never bothered changing it back, because I didn't think there was any chance that I'd see you again!”

“Oh,” said Fai, and thought about this for a moment. “Yuui, it doesn't really make any difference to me. We've always been together for as long as I've been alive – the tower and the pit don't count, right? If you'd like, I could just use your name instead. I bet a lot of people are used to calling you Fai now. Won't it make trouble for you if you try to change it again?”

Yuui looked staggered. Behind him, Kurogane looked faintly smug. Fai managed to catch his eye for a quick wink, which had him snorting silent laughter into his coffee. “Don't you mind?” asked Yuui, who seemed a little nervous.

“It's _me_ , brother – you don't have to be nothing but nice, you know. I'm really, _really_ grateful for everything that both of you have done for me, and I'm full up with thinking that I don't have anything I can give back to you both. My name is mine. You can have it, and I'll be so glad if you're able to accept it and just relax. It's not much of a gift – I wasn't using it anyway. Can I be Yuui, then?”

As easily as borrowing a robe, Fai and Yuui swapped names at the breakfast table, and they never changed them back.

\---

_Four of Wands:_

_Upright: Celebration, harmony, marriage, home, community  
Reversed: Breakdown in communication, transition_


	12. La Roue de Fortune

There were many complications, naturally. Kurogane and the man now known forever as Fai had barely planned to stay in this world in the first place; it had happened over a long period of time. They hadn't ever taken formal jobs and nor had they particularly planned on doing so. But the arrival of the newly-minted Yuui without so much as a single decent set of clothes to his name meant immediate changes. It began with Kurogane, who took up a role in the village as a deliveryman straight away. He bore a note of explanation from his employer everywhere he went, explaining that his mute status was the result of an illness and not malice, that he understood all that was said to him – but also that, as a foreigner, he had only a partial understanding of what was written here. At first the customers on his route reacted with suspicion, but he was helpful and attentive, and above all, strong. He quickly gained a reputation in the hills for being reliable and swift, and his employer's business profited slightly from his visibility: most of the cart drivers in the hills lacked presence as far as the people on their routes were concerned, but not Kurogane, with his broad shoulders, strange eyes, and silent attention. The work was not exciting, but it paid well for the area, and he began drawing up plans for Yuui's room straight away: the desperate need for closeness between the twins was bound to relax into the more normal need for a little space and privacy, especially as Kurogane expected Yuui to reach his teens sooner or later. He couldn't guarantee when that would be, given the twins' magical rate of ageing, and his time in the tower, but Yuui was his own person, and Kurogane was determined to treat him that way.

Fai rapidly expanded his growing skillset to include things which his elderly customers might enjoy, and casually dropped them into conversation as he checked in on people's ongoing health issues. Some scented soap here, dried flowers for a long bath there... at first, it barely broke even, but his little side business began to pick up steam. It might have been easier if he'd moved his work into separate premises, but with Kurogane spending most of his time on deliveries, he felt the need to be around for Yuui as often as he could. His brother was eager to please, but tended to keep his thoughts to himself. In the night, the boy would still sometimes wake Fai up with his crying from time to time. Yuui had claimed that he didn't know what brought on his emotional spells, and that he wasn't sad, really he wasn't!, but Fai had his doubts. He remembered how long it had taken him to make any sort of personal connections in Ceres, and how dark his thoughts had become from time to time. Of course Yuui's circumstances were different: Fai had impressed upon him that both he and Kurogane would be here for him no matter what, but this didn't seem to help the child relax. When confronted with any sort of realities about his presence in their lives, Yuui would become awkward, twiddling the ends of his plait – he would hold back, clearly trying to avoid being told once again not to keep thanking them both. On days when Yuui didn't leave the bedroom, Fai would leave food and drink outside the shut door, coughing tactfully to announce his presence, and then leaving. He never told Kurogane about the bad times. Instead he would try to give his twin space to recover, and worked himself up trying to fill the time he was spending without him in making ever more elaborate concoctions on the kitchen table, desperate to have a little extra money, so that he could shower Yuui with however many personal possessions it took for him to finally know in his bones _this is home, you belong here, you are enough exactly how you are._ On those nights Kurogane would silently prepare dinner around him, while Fai guiltily tried to clean up behind himself, too little too late, and Yuui would emerge from the bedroom at the last moment, and pretend to be absorbed with studying Fai's notes on the herbs of the land, which were the only available text he could understand.

Soon enough Yuui did own many of his own things. It wasn't the luxury in which King Ashura had brought Fai up, but they were _his_ , and they were loved. Several sets of clothes which fit, his own bowl and plate, toothbrush, hairbrush, two pairs of boots, blank books and writing ink, a sleeping mat to unfurl beside Kurogane and Fai's bed when they all seemed to be taking up too much room... Acutely, painfully aware of the cost of taking him in, Yuui pushed himself to his limits by branching out of the family home, taking the initiative to make his first friend – a mother of five from the village, with the name of a local flower, who he had spoken to several times in passing. His forehead to the floor, he begged her to teach him how to mend and make clothing, confessed that he had no money to pay for lessons, and offered to do anything for her which could be taught easily. He had his own translation ring by now, but for reasons he never specified, preferred to wear it on a chain about his neck. She acquiesced, a step from laughing until she saw his earnest, fixed expression, and so she worked him hard – he suspected his scarred fingers would have bled, if they could do so easily these days, but they didn't. So alongside his sewing lessons, he learned many things that Fai and Kurogane never had: how to swaddle a child, how to fetch two buckets of water at a time without spilling any, the most effective way to wash embroidered fabrics, how to quiet a crying toddler, where the chickens laid their eggs in the heat of the summer, and how everybody who ever visited took their tea. If anybody in the village had ever thought it improper that he became so involved in her family life, it went unsaid: perhaps they had seen his hollow cheeks, ruined fingers and utter fatigue when he'd first arrived, or perhaps they'd seen how earnestly Fai and Kurogane were working to make sure that they could stay together. Just as nobody had ever said aloud that two men weren't _meant_ to live together as man and wife, nobody ever seemed to openly dislike this pale-skinned foreign boy who wanted to learn women's work, and who often seemed to forget all about his translation ring, and spoke with an awkward accent and a lopsided smile as he learned every word he could absorb. In time he would learn the tongue so thoroughly that he was almost impossible for city folk to understand, so strong was his village dialect. It took many long months before his room was built at home, and in that time Yuui often took to sleeping on the floor in the children's room – he never had any difficulty sleeping on the floorboards, and he claimed it was easier than running back home every time he needed anything. But after his room was built he slept there every night, and aired his kakefuton every fresh day before running down into the village to help.

Fai was unsure of how to introduce his brother in the village, at first. 'Twin' was clearly going to raise more questions than it answered, and 'son' wasn't going to fly, from a biological perspective. He confessed to Kurogane when they were alone that he wanted to find some sort of terminology which included both of them, but Kurogane just rolled his eyes. So 'brother' it was, and people expected strangeness from the pale-skinned brothers anyway – nobody seemed to mind when the little blue-eyed boy was escorted to or from his various destinations in and around the village by Kurogane, who everybody recognised in any case. Strangeness married strangeness – that seemed to be the way people took it. They looked right together anyway – Yuui chattering excitedly about all he'd seen and done, and Kurogane listening intently before reacting with hand gestures, or simply taking the child's small hand in his while he continued to listen. And it seemed as though in no time at all, the head of the child beside Kurogane wasn't quite so far below his shoulder; soon he didn't have to reach up so far for a hug.

One year after his arrival, Yuui shyly presented Fai and Kurogane with an embroidered cover for their kakefuton. Made mostly in local styles and colours, there were little hints of his past in Valeria concealed in his needlework – curved knotwork patterns in the corners which reminded Fai of the ornamentation on the books of the Great Library, and snow motifs here and there amongst the more traditional flowers and gridwork. Here and there were rough patches where he had clearly had to go back and start again. In years to come Yuui would be embarrassed by his first completed project, and protest that Fai and Kurogane really should put it away and use a newer one, but somehow they never seemed to get round to it.

From that day on Yuui refused all offers of clothing from Kurogane and Fai; he made his own clothes for a year and then began to offer to replace items of theirs as they wore out. His abilities caught up with his ambitions quickly, and the three found that they were seldom without a comfortable, well-made outfit to wear. Kurogane's style took the longest for Yuui to master: eventually, in his frustration, he took an old pair of his hakama apart to the very last stitch, but presented him with three new pairs for his patience. Kurogane, who preferred not to make open displays of his feelings, seemed to walk particularly tall in his newer clothes, and if ever anybody asked him any questions about them, would point immediately to Yuui, who buckled under the attention at first, but shyly began answering questions the more often he was asked them. He took in little repair jobs after that, and eventually started making festival clothing for the village children – work which demanded strict attention to detail, but could be completed over a long period of time, as he continued to learn and practice with his mentor. The three men and their unique abilities were fitting in more with each passing month, and while they were never swimming in wealth, each of them found that they never wanted for anything for long.

The twins never changed their names back, or even spoke of the switch again. And in time a third change occurred: Kurogane ended up with a new name, too. An accident at first, but never remarked upon, it stuck, and in time filled him with further pride, which he still strove to conceal. It never made that much sense to anybody who heard it and considered it, but at the same time it _fit_ – just as Yuui had been born Fai and Fai Yuui, the logic didn't matter, and the heart did.

The name was 'Dad.'

\---

_Wheel of Fortune:_

_Upright: Good luck, karma, life cycles, destiny, a turning point  
Reversed: Bad luck, negative external forces, out of control_


	13. An Account of a Carefree Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Arisprite for an incisive reading, I'd like to use this space to state that Xianlang, narrator of this chapter, is an alternative universe version of Fujitaka, before he either has Touya and Sakura or adopts Syaoran. Fai, Kurogane and Yuui would have no particular reason to recognise him, but it fits really nicely. Wish I'd thought of it myself.

I, Hong Xianliang, submit to you my readers this, the fourteenth instalment of the annals of my travels, featuring this time a pleasing diversion in the village of Heping.

As I continued my northwards journey along the Empress's Road Of One Thousand Larches, I found myself at a stretch not yet completed to the standard to which the great Road has risen most nobly in the south. The maps which I hastily consulted confirmed that I was headed in the right direction, but the road surface left much to be desired. It seemed that a more rural path existed already here, and that extant as it was, it was to be paved and widened at a later date while other, more pressing work took place. There was little traffic and the potholes were large. The roughshod surface made me slow my pace lest I turn an ankle, yet the sun was warm and the air sweet, and many birds were gathered about the fields. I found myself of a mind to ignore my original intention of strictly following the completed Road, and go where the track might take me.

I came eventually upon various settlements, some larger than others, but none of any great and compelling cultural quality that I could observe. They were built haphazardly at bends in the river, in valleys and against smooth moss-faced cliffs. In the flat fields below the hills and mountains, men drove cattle in small numbers; some of the shallower hills were cut into terraces for crops. A woman with a stall at the roadside sharpened knives for a living. Smaller houses were set back from the road, giving lie to the sense that the place was near-deserted – in fact perhaps there were many families living peacefully here. Nonetheless there seemed little to set the settlements upon this track apart from the other villages I had traversed of late. It was to look at quite a lovely area, and I am certain that each of its inhabitants had their share of hopes, of fears, of doubts and of love. But it was a quiet area, and poor, and happy though I was to reach a new point on my journey, I began, my dear readers, to despair that I should have anything of note to send to you at all.

I drank tea and asked questions at every stop along the rough road, as is my wont, but I found precious little I wished to follow. Yet in time, as the track propelled me towards a village referred to as Heping, a murmur began. The locals told me in hushed voices, through insinuation and innuendo that, if I was writing a book, then I must visit the family who lived right on the track, on the foot of the cliff on the way out of the village. When I probed them for their reasoning, they scuffed their feet and would not tell me what was so special about this family. They ran a shop, I was told. They were from out of town, I was told.

Not convinced of the newsworthiness of this nebulous tale, but unwilling yet to write off this morning's long walk and face changing my course, I continued up the winding, narrow road until I came to a building much unlike the others. Built of planed wood and with a slate roof, the second storey seemed aged differently, its wood pale and less seasoned, as if added as an afterthought. The sign above the door, painted in an elegant hand, advertised an odd variety of goods and trades: _Heping Teahouse of the Singing Stream. Light refreshment. Herbalist. Deliveries. Clothes repaired and haberdashery commissions taken._ Above it all was a strangely rendered and most stylised painting of a cat, dog and bird, sleeping peacefully beneath a crescent moon.Though the building near backed onto the steep moss-covered cliff whose spiking form characterised the landscape of this region so well, a long garden extended to its side, with a great many herbs in raised beds, and a variety of vegetables growing in neatly tended lines. As I approached the door, several wandering chickens ceased their dust-bath, clucked at me in indignation, and fled over the low fence into the garden.

The door was closed, but a small sign indicated that they were ready to receive guests, and so I stepped in. A little bell above the door was knocked as I opened it, and rang a high, clear note. A handful of customers were present, speaking in quiet voices; they snuck glances of varying length but said nothing. A large man approached the counter from a back room, apparently in no hurry. He was drying his hands on a cloth and gave me an enquiring look as I approached. I introduced myself politely but received no response, and was like to become affronted, but he fixed me with a keen look and bowed deeply, proffering to me a small, handpainted card, listing the many drinks and few simple meals served here. There was a queer quality about his expression, which made me hesitate to assume him rude. I leaned as close as I dared without intruding and saw a strange glimmer in the master's eyes, which were not black as I had thought. I took the card, and retreated to one of the few seats near the window.

In a similarly elegant hand to the one found upon the lintel, I read that there was a wide selection of teas available, as well as coffee – a surprise to find it brewed in a small village such as this, when I had only become familiar with it through its habitual favour with the children of the city elites. Other parts of the menu rang foreign to my eyes: the soups appeared to nearly universally contain cheese, for some reason, and some of the names of the vegetables in their small dishes were odd. An entire face of the card was devoted to sweetmeats as well: two young women sat in the corner, whose conversation had taken hushed tones when I entered, had already eaten a portion of their choice, a pair of brightly-coloured and rather shiny looking desserts, with a finish like scattered gems. No longer did I feel any doubt that I had found the strange tearoom which the other villagers had told me about.

One of the shy young women had caught my eye and seemed about to inform me of a certain matter, though clearly it was not her custom to speak out so, when the man with garnet eyes rang a bell at the counter and she gratefully desisted. Thunderous stairbound footfalls rang out through the room in an instant, and a young man appeared with a flustered expression. “Sorry Dad,” he panted as he skidded in on socked feet, “heard the bell, but thought Fai was still in.”

The young man was clearly foreign-born but spoke with no accent. If I was any judge of his kind, he had perhaps twenty years lived in him. His skin was pale and his hair, heaped messily up with several clasps and in no apparent intentional style, was the lightest of golden hues. He was wearing a changshan of sky blue, which matched his wide, long-lashed eyes, and had a number of pins apparently hastily stuffed into the collar. A long green silk thread trailed unheeded from one sock. It seemed that I had found the seamstress, unlikely though he may be. The silent man moved his hands quickly in a variety of deliberate motions, and his son looked straight over to me, and strode over to stand companionably aside me.

“Good afternoon sir,” he said, with a polite bow. “I am Yuui of the Fluorite family. My father informs me that you are a new guest in our home, and bids me convey to you my apologies for any rudeness on his part. He has been mute for many years but will be more than happy to take your order. Alternatively if you have any questions regarding our menu, it might be more prudent to direct them to me.” I looked at his expression more closely and realised that behind his polite words, he was joking around.

“Quite,” I allowed in response: “I cannot imagine they will go answered directed otherwise.” I ordered both tea and coffee, and a small selection of sweets, and feeling that an explanation was owed for my strange order, mentioned my writing. The seamstress made a series of fast hand signals across the room and his father departed; he sat draped backwards across a seat opposite me, and asked if I should wish to know the history of the tearoom.

“Does your father not need you to tell him the order?” I began, thinking the service poor, but was mollified when the young man told me that his father used gestures in the place of speech, and so of course all his family knew them: the order already thus signalled, Fluorite Yuui was simply offering me his company.

“How did he lose his voice so permanently?” I enquired with caution, thinking perhaps there was a story here.

“Well, the official line is that it was lost to illness,” he said, watching his father preparing the tea, “but in actuality, it was a matter of dealings in magic. It is not kept as a secret, but we prefer not to confuse things for people who won't see us again. Dad and Fai travelled a great distance using magic when they were younger, and magic that strong like as not comes at a great price.”

“You are not... a secretive family then?” I asked, picking my words delicately. The young man seemed to see right through me: he laughed and leaned over the seatback to look me in the eye. So forward a gesture should have seemed rude, but on him came across more as though he wished to intimate a great story to me. I found myself leaning closer to hear what he had to say.

“You want to know how it is that I look nothing like Dad, do you not? It's simple: we're not related by blood. He's more of a father-in-law – he's entangled with my older brother. That,” he said with some emphasis, “is another thing we've never quite said nor refrained from saying – nobody's ever exactly told those two in so many words that they can't run a tearoom and be with one another, but I know that it isn't possible that every passer-by who meets our family can approve wholeheartedly.”

“An odd arrangement for the three of you!” I could not but comment.

“Indeed, and odder still should I tell you the final truth of it: Fai is my twin. They came to fetch me from my time and place, knowing they could use the knowledge and skills of their travels to save me from a cruel end. That is why Kurogane's a dad to me, but my twin is his husband.”

I could not but be shocked by his words, yet the easy manner of the young man put doubt into my heart: why should two hardened travellers not wish to set up a rural tearoom at the end of their road? Why should they not raise up a child who had fallen on hard times? I found that I could not answer the questions of my own mind when before me sat the cheerful, articulate and healthy evidence that they had faced no struggle in raising the boy which had not been overcome.

“You did not feel as though you were missing a mother figure in your life?” I asked. I felt half-unwilling in questioning the young man, and tried to tell Yuui with my expression that he could stop my line of questioning with a word.

“Our mother passed by her own hand when we were babes in arms,” Yuui informed me. The smile did not leave his face. “We came from a world where circumstances were cruel. It was not her fault, but nor was it ours. Love was not offered to me until my father risked his life to return to my time and save me. Since that day I have been shown nothing but love. Dad crossed the mountains a hundred times a hundred times as a deliveryman, saving for my future, and Fai worked tirelessly in the home making medicines to sell, that I would always know that I was safe here. What more could I have needed?”

“It appears that your family have done well since then,” I agreed. Yuui's garnet-eyed father appeared in silence by my elbow, with a polite smile and small duck of the head. It seemed to me that his gesture was an adapted form of the curtsey used by the wives serving tea at many such roadside teahouses, and it struck me as a fair compromise: I felt respected, but had no sense that the man was putting on a great performance for the sake of my ease.

Yuui explained aloud to Kurogane a little about my writing, most like using words rather than gestures for my own benefit, and received a few cursory signals in response from the busy hands of his father, as he placed the pots, cups and plate of desserts before me. The tea smelled sweet and fragrant and the coffee dark and intense. I realised that Yuui was watching my reaction closely and had to hide a smile, so clearly was he eager to see me enjoy his family's work.

“Dad says that you should take your time, and let him know if there's anything else you need. Do you like the cup and saucer? My brother made them – I like his work very much.”

I found that I did like the cup and saucer, very much, and it was the same for the tea. It was an ordinary jasmine with a blend of local berries, yet it tasted somehow otherworldly. The combination was not one that I would have thought to taste for myself were it not innocuously entered onto the list of beverages on the card, and I felt that I was tasting the flavours of a foreign man who truly appreciated the food and culture of this area, yet who could not but let his own quirks shine through. The cup and saucer were similar in that respect: hand-painted with a flowing design, they incorporated the floral motifs predominantly used in the area, but with flourishes I had not previously encountered. The coffee was simply a very good cup of coffee. It was powerful, with a dense, earthy flavour, clearly carefully roasted with the kind of dedication I had not expected to find so far from the city. I could sense my awareness becoming somewhat heightened, so I proffered the half-filled carafe to Yuui, who got up to take a clean cup and rejoined me.

“Those who do not waste shall not want,” he announced with a smile as he filled his cup. “Naturally, this is on the house.”

I steeled myself to take a bite of the strawberry tart, which was glistening unnaturally on the plate before me, when to my horror the cook appeared. Much as Yuui's tale had indicated, his brother did seem as though he could simply be an older version of the young man before me. His face was slightly lined, his eyes a little sadder, and he seemed less as though he was brimming with energy about to overflow into the people around him, but he lit up like a gem-shaded lamp when he caught Kurogane's eye, with a rich warmth and a slight smile. Unaware of my observation, he leaned in and whispered into his mute partner's ear, and was swatted away irritably for his troubles. I raised an eyebrow to Yuui.

“They are always that way. They met at odds and seem to intend to stay so to the end of their days.” He smiled. “It makes Fai happy when people react to his teasing, so Father overreacts on purpose, though he'd never admit to it.” Perhaps observing my mild consternation, he clarified: “Father was a _ninja_ , a – a court warrior, and he lived a very hard existence in some ways. Fai jokes with him because when my father is telling him he doesn't want to see him, yet makes no move to get away, it reminds them both that they have a home where they are loved without condition.” Kurogane began to sign rapidly to Fai, who caught my eye with guarded interest. He strode over to me, his queer robes flapping about him, and bowed a little awkwardly, though with a flourish.

“I trust my boy hasn't been troubling you?” He too spoke with no accent. Yuui made an agonised noise and rolled his eyes, looking for a moment like any son under duress.

“He has been charming company,” I reassured him, “and has regaled me with much of interest!”

This older version of Yuui looked at my empty teacup and at the carafe of coffee, with only a little remaining, then at my untouched desserts, and then back to my face, with a knowing manner. “They won't bite you, you know. And I'd not serve anything I didn't think worth eating! Do they look so foreign?” He flashed a dazzling smile.

I admitted that I had but managed to raise the spoon with which to cut my tart when I had caught his eye and found myself overcome by he sensation of being watched whilst eating. And also that they did look rather foreign to my eye.

“Is it the glaze? Ordinary sugar and starch, with a few other things. And please, feel free to use your fingers for that one – that's why the sides aren't sticky.”

The notion of 'other things' did not fill me with confidence, but I had come too far to give up. I took the tart in my hand and bit a hearty mouthful.

It was excellent. The over-sweetness I had feared the most was not there. The strawberries were as soft as the morning they were picked. The base had a pleasing crispness without snapping under pressure, and the yellow inside was creamy and tasted like vanilla. My expression must have given away my thoughts, for Yuui laughed aloud.

“Another convert, older brother!”

The second of the three desserts, I was informed, was a _pastilla_. Appearing to be a small square of some sweet substance with nothing diverting about its appearance bar its slightly unnatural green hue, I was pleased to find that it was light as air, and tasted forcefully of apple.

“We had these as children,” imparted Yuui. “Fai didn't like to think of home much before I was here, but I begged him to rediscover how they were made.”

“Your death troubled me,” said Fai, with a lazy shrug. “You wouldn't have wanted to think of the place we were raised either, if it had been the other way around.” I elected not to ask.

The third, I was informed, was _sakuramochi_. Bright pink and again, a little intimidating in appearance. “You can eat the leaf. It's basically a bai tang gao,” said Yuui reassuringly, whilst Fai began indignantly to list reasons that it wasn't. I was encouraged to use my fingers again, and this time I took a big bite: it was filled with bean paste, and stretched as I chewed. It was more interesting to my palate than it was delicious, but the flavour was far from unpleasant. I enjoyed it immensely, and found myself returning to each dessert as we talked further into the afternoon, though I had only intended to buy them to taste each.

“Did I hear you say earlier that you used magic to find one another? I have not heard of much powerful magic practised outside the great universities of the east,” I enquired.

“Fai used to do magic, but he burned himself out,” explained Yuui. “Father understands a lot about it but he's never had any of his own. And me? I'm a natural.” He clicked his fingers and whistled, and a small shower of cherry blossom circled our table and ours alone. “It's good for a trick but I find that I don't need it often. I'm more of a seamstress.” The petals nestled in his hair gave him the air of a forest sprite, and I silently marvelled that this highly unusual young man should be so at home in so isolated and traditional a village.

“Did you meet Kurogane through magical means, then?” I asked Fai. “What was it that brought you together?”

“Hmm?” he said, offhandedly. “Oh, I was hired to kill him, really.”

And so the afternoon went, with Kurogane, mute but attentive as other customers entered and left, and the twins untwinned making friendly but troublesome conversation. Their relaxed nature and their down-to-earth teahouse belied the nature of their earlier travels. It seemed that the little family had come together from great darkness, and they gave me much to think about. Eventually, the golden afternoon sun streaming through the window, I found I must bid my leave, lest I not find a suitable inn before nightfall. I thanked them again and again for their tales, but still they refused money, saying that teasing me had been payment enough, and that when my writing was collected they would like very much to see a volume, a faith in my writing that I have yet to find for myself.

As I left, my stomach filled and my mind abuzz with the novelty of the teahouse, I felt a particular joy well up in me. It was not because of what I had eaten, but was due instead to the vision of the future which I was forming. Oh, the food and drink was good enough – it was in the desserts that the skills of the herbalist Fluorite Fai could really sing – but, my dear readers, you do not come to me as your scholar of food but as a traveller in the foothills of civilization. And I am here to tell you this: never have I met three men who so evinced the most important qualities civilization has to offer. The curiosity and friendliness of Yuui could cross cultures seamlessly. The craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail of Fai seemed to know no discipline it could not tame. The strength and kindness of Kurogane had iron-forged their bonds and held them together as a family, through all they had seen and done.

I have decided to stay away from the Road for a while longer, and see what other delights and intrigues await me in the mountains. For while the men and women of the northern villages may appear to live the same existence from day to day, even the humblest of dwellings may hide talents and passions the like of which have never been seen before in the land, and still be embraced and upheld by the community. The Road will be completed, and change will come to this area one day. But I believe that its inhabitants shall be ready to meet it. 

\---

Xianlang left with a tale for his readers, having learned a lot from the twins over his tea and coffee, but never quite the whole story. As he left, his pack slung over his shoulder, Fai gave him a smile and a wave, and slipped his arms around Kurogane's waist. The closing of the door raised a slight breeze which caused a sparkling rock hanging in the window to turn on its cord and catch the rich afternoon sunlight, scattering spots of colour throughout the tearoom.

The rock was smooth, with two deep white rings scored into it.


End file.
